Valero's Jean Gaulin Refinery (Quebec City refinery ; Raffinerie de Saint-Romuald, Raffinerie de Lévis) is located in Lévis, Canada on 370 acres on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, immediately across from Quebec City, Canada. The refinery receives crude oil by ship at its deepwater dock and by pipeline and ship from western Canada. It transports its products through Valero's pipeline from Quebec City to the company's terminal in Montreal and to various other terminals through eastern Canada by rail, ships, trucks and third-party pipelines.

1969 : Construction of the refinery begins

1971 : Refinery begins its operations 

1983 : FCC unit is installed for bottom of barrel conversion 

1989 : Isomerization and desulfurization units are constructed for environmental purposes

1997 : FCC unit upgraded for higher throughput. Oxygen plant also constructed. The plant processed acidic crudes from the North Sea at that moment. 

2001 : The refinery capacity is 170 000 bbl/day

2002 : Expansion, new capacity is 215 000 bbl/day

2004 : Construction of CCR unit, replacing the Semi-Regen reformer.

2008 : Last major expansion, new capacity is 265 000 bbl/day (nominal, day to day is 235 000 bbl/day)

2010 : A fire erupts on a FCC pump ; more fear than losses 

2021 : Major shutdown/turnaround

2025 : Major shutdown/turnaround

The refinery is an important asset of Valero, insider source confirms : "it is here to stay". It is Canada's best refinery on return of investment and it apparently scores in the first percentile of the Solomon index for refineries in North America.

2.0 billions $ have been invested in the refinery since the earlys 2000. 

The refinery was designed on the basis of two crudes, Libyan Brega (light) and Tia Juana (medium). 

Only the FCC does the bottom of barrel conversion, there is no hydrocracker or delayed coker on site. 

(Left) Brand new FCC, early 1980s

(Right) FCC's regenerator being brought by boat to Jean Gaulin, early 1980s