Tosco Corp

Independent consultants reviewing safety at Tosco Corp.'s Avon oil refinery, where a blast killed four people in February, said in a draft report that worker-supervisor disputes impaired safety at the site. The report, prepared by Arthur D. Little for Contra Costa County Health Services, said an adversarial relationship between workers and their managers had impeded communication at the plant.

Tosco Corp., an oil refiner and the nation's largest operator of company-owned convenience stores, said it has sold about 320 gas stations and convenience stores in the Midwest, Texas, Utah and Colorado for about $125 million to an undisclosed buyer. Tosco, owner of the Circle K chain, said in a statement that the facilities did not meet company rate-of-return criteria and that it will be focusing on those outlets producing the best returns. Tosco, based in Stamford, Conn.

Gasoline prices in the state are on the way up primarily because of an explosion last week at a Tosco oil refinery in Northern California that killed four workers. Tosco Corp. agreed Tuesday to temporarily shut down the 156,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Martinez at the request of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, which had threatened legal action against the Stamford, Conn.-based company. The refinery will remain closed during a safety review, which will last at least a month.

Tosco Corp. said Wednesday that it is experimenting with selling gasoline that does not contain the controversial additive MTBE at 50 of its 76-brand service stations in Northern California. The gasoline that Tosco will be selling at the stations in Contra Costa, Marin and Sonoma counties will comply with all California and federal standards, Tosco spokesman David Kory said. "This gasoline is completely legal," Kory said. "We're trying to demonstrate that solutions to MTBE gasoline are possible."

A major oil company, Tosco Corp., has called for the phasing out of a widely used smog-suppressing gasoline additive, MTBE, citing widespread evidence that it has contaminated lakes and underground supplies of drinking water. The additive emerged as something of a double-edged sword in the fight against pollution after leaks from gas station storage tanks forced Santa Monica to shut down a portion of its water supply last year and undertake an expensive cleanup.

Tosco Corp. is urging the state Air Resources Board to move quickly toward eliminating a smog-reducing gasoline additive because of concerns it could cause widespread contamination of drinking water supplies. The plea by Tosco to stop oil industry usage of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, could rock an industry that has invested billions in formulating fuel with the additive to make a federally required "cleaner-burning gasoline."

The Great Pumpkin is alive and well in Wilmington. Continuing a 46-year tradition, workers got out their brushes this week at the Tosco refinery and painted a 3-million-gallon storage tank to look like a huge pumpkin. It took 100 gallons of orange paint, 10 gallons of black paint and three gallons of white paint to accomplish the three-day job, Tosco spokeswoman Agnes Sibal said.

It's not all cutthroat competition out there. 76 Lubricants Co. says it now gets its basic motor oil supply from Exxon Corp. When it was owned by Unocal, the Costa Mesa-based lubricants company got its raw materials from Unocal refineries. But New Jersey refinery and convenience store operator Tosco Corp. acquired the refineries as part of its $2-billion purchase of Unocal 76 Products Co. and has changed the mix of things being refined.

Tosco Corp. was fined a record $277,750 for workplace violations as a result of a fatal Jan. 21 explosion at its oil refinery in Martinez, Calif. The fine is the highest ever levied by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health against a petroleum refinery firm. Tosco said it is reviewing the fine and will make a decision in 10 days on whether to appeal all or part of it.