HONOLULU — An over 50-year-old petroleum refinery in James Campbell Industrial Park plans to develop and commission what it deems will be the largest renewable fuel production facility in Hawaii.
PAR Hawaii Refining LLC proposes that part of its 151.4-acre facility in Kapolei produce low-carbon-emission, plant-based biofuels, including renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel and renewable liquefied petroleum gas, among others.
To be completed by mid-2025, the company says its over $90 million project at 91-325 Komohana St. could eventually produce 60 million gallons of renewable fuels annually.
But before this project fuels up, PAR Hawaii must first obtain a required zoning variance from the city Department of Planning and Permitting.
If granted, the requested variance will allow the company’s latest equipment to exceed a maximum height “and increase nonconformity at an existing petroleum processing refinery in Kapolei,” according to project plans.
DPP held its zoning hearing Monday with regard to height limits for PAR Hawaii’s new biofuel site.
“The purpose of today’s hearing is to gather and hear testimony,” Maylene Simeon, the city’s hearing officer, said at the meeting. “For variance approval, it is necessary for the applicant to establish that there are sufficient grounds for a finding of ‘hardship.’”
She noted that “the criteria for variance approval are: the applicant would be deprived of reasonable use of the property, or building, if the variance is not granted.”
She added, “The request is due to unique circumstances, and not the general conditions of the neighborhood, so that the reasonableness of the neighborhood zoning is not drawn into question.”
“And the request, if approved, will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or be contrary to the intent or purpose of the zoning ordinance,” she said, adding, “No decision will be made here today.”
“The director will render a written decision within 60 days of the close of this hearing,” Simeon said.
At the hearing, Michael Kat, a DPP staff planner, said the city’s zoning variance is required “because the project will exceed the 60-foot height limit for the (intensive industrial) district.”
“Specifically, five new pieces will exceed 60 feet in height,” he said.
Those pieces include a 145-foot-tall renewable hydrotreater reactor, a 109-foot renewable hydrotreater stripper, a 65-foot pre-treatment unit, an 84-foot boiler stack and a 62-foot deaerator, according to project plans.
“PHR would be deprived of reasonable use of the land if not allowed to exceed the 60-foot height limit,” project plans state. “Petroleum processing facilities are only allowed with an approved (conditional use permit) in two zoning districts: The I-2 Intensive Industrial District and the I-3 Waterfront Industrial District.”
“These zoning districts are limited on the island and very few industrially-zoned areas exceed a height limit of 60 feet, which is needed to accommodate the equipment necessary for the renewable fuel production facility,” the plans state.
According to Kat, 48 structures at the plant currently are “nonconforming and exceed the 60-feet height limit, some as high as 176 feet.”
“If this variance permit is approved, the applicant may then apply for the necessary permits for the project,” Kat said. “In addition to the zoning variance, the applicant also seeks a minor modification to the existing conditional use permit that authorizes the petroleum processing facility use.”
Tracy Camuso, a project planner with G70 representing PAR Hawaii, said the project will have limited impacts to surrounding areas.
“The views are not anticipated to be impacted; we’re coming in lower than what’s existing right now,” she said. “There are no sensitive receptors around the area — schools, residential areas.”
Jamie Ware, PAR Hawaii’s renewable initiatives project director, told DPP her company’s objectives “were to begin producing renewable fuels for the state.”
She said new biofuels will be based on a “field trial that we have here in Hawaii.”
“We’re growing renewable crops; that’s for our feedstock unit,” Ware said. “That’s camelina, in particular, which is a high-oil-producing seed that can be used to convert to our renewable products.”
She said a “unique aspect of this project is that it’s converting an existing fossil fuel facility to renewable fuels.”
Among that equipment, the company plans to install a renewable hydrotreater unit that will repurpose older, diesel-producing equipment, she said.
“And that will take renewable feedstock and convert it into the renewable biofuels I had mentioned earlier,” Ware said.
According to Camuso, as far as this project goes, “PAR Hawaii is doing their due diligence to make sure they’re complying with air requirements, working with the (state) Department of Health and the Clean Air Branch.”
No one from the public testified on the project at the hearing.
DPP staffers asked no questions of the applicant or its project planner, either.
After the meeting, DPP spokesperson Curtis Lum told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the city “has not received complaints relating to” PAR Hawaii’s project.
“We also did not receive any written testimony on this proposed project,” Lum said, adding that no other public hearings are scheduled in this matter. “We have until Nov. 8 to make a decision.”
Marc Inouye, PAR Hawaii’s director of government and public affairs, told the Star- Advertiser by phone that the renewable fuels project will benefit large local businesses and residents alike.
“The state is shifting into renewable energy,” he said. “And we’re all kind of moving in the direction to help decarbonize the state, and also meet the state’s energy goals of being 100 percent on renewables for utilities by 2045.”
Inouye said renewable diesel is used by utilities like Hawaiian Electric Co. as well as for those running “heavy-duty trucks or boats.”
“Another one, sustainable aviation fuel, can be used in planes,” Inouye said. “We have a good partnership with Hawaiian Airlines; they are kind of one of our strong partners.”
He said his company has also partnered with Honolulu-based Pono Pacific, a land management company, “to start the trials to grow camelina here in Hawaii.”
“To see if we can spur some diversity in agriculture out here,” he added.
He said another plant product being eyed for use in renewable fuels here — soybeans — does not easily grow in Hawaii.
“We’d have to import it; it would be from the U.S. mainland, domestically,” Inouye said. “Or, there are places like Argentina, where they’re a huge producer of soybean oil for the world as well.”
Originally founded in 1972, Par Hawaii is a wholly owned subsidiary of Houston-based Par Pacific Holdings Inc., its website states.
The company owns the state’s only petroleum refinery, with a capacity to process 94,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and distributes fuels, via pipelines, on Oahu and barges the rest to all major harbors in the state.
