ROBERT BRELSFORD
Downstream Technology Editor
With forms for the 2016 edition of OGJ's annual Worldwide Refining Survey now making their way onto desks of this year's respondents, there couldn't be a better time to pull back the curtain to offer readers and operators alike a peek at what life will be looking like for the downstream technical editor over the next few months.
It also provides an opportunity to remind some US and international operating companies-particularly those whose holdings include refineries historically listed in the survey-of the survey's broader importance.
While it's a voluntary response-based review of the industry's refining landscape, the decision to "reserve the right not to participate" (as one operator recently put it) under an assumption of your refinery's ongoing inclusion in the survey moving forward is now tantamount to playing a dangerous game.
Beast of burden
With the departure of a dedicated survey editor in late 2015, OGJ sectional editors have taken over responsibilities for surveys within their respective disciplines. As much as this creates a chance for editors to more deeply interact with individual operating companies during the data collection process, it also demands a time commitment that can't impede upon accomplishing day-to-day editorial priorities.
In a perfect world, the survey process would be one into which the editor could effortlessly step, with the basic components ready to roll out like some mythically smooth machine: the perfect survey form would be perfectly in queue to roll out to the perfectly exhaustive list of respondents at their perfectly accurate (and direct) addresses.
Back in the day, this is probably how it likely was for the lineage of OGJ survey editors whose work now fills the neatly bound volumes of past issues lining the walls of our archives room.
Things have changed, however.
Survey e-mails now haunt inboxes of suddenly missing long-time survey recipients. This company now has the survey go to that department. That company thinks this department should receive it. These companies have no idea which division should handle it, so "just send them to our legal departments and someone there will figure out what to do with it and get back to you shortly."
"Thanks so much, and yes, I'll look forward to hearing back from you soon."
Oh, and, by the way, I'll be holding my breath until you do.
Maybe adding that last bit would have made a difference 20 years ago, but today, not so much.
Two-way street
While certain long-time respondents take for granted the refinery survey process under a presupposition that their plants will land in the finished product whether or not they get their acts together to formally respond, a host of seemingly new operators are pulling out their hair to simply receive an invitation to participate.
This one has a new 10,000-b/d topping refinery here. That one is planning a new 40,000-b/d modular refinery there. Here are government documents from our countries to validate our existence.
The point is, inclusion in the survey-even the invitation to be included-is a privilege. To date, we still call the refining survey a "survey" because we value an operator's direct input. If we wanted to call it a "report," we would call it a report, and I could make much better use of my time by simply pulling official operating data from filings, typing it into my little computer, and calling it a day.
So you're more than entitled to reserve your right not to reply. Just remember, we reserve our right to rescind our invitation. And if your refinery vanishes from our listing, and a certain producer cuts off your crude deliveries...well, you probably should have just gone ahead and responded.
