HONX, a subsidiary of former St Croix refinery owners Hess Corp., have agreed to settle potential asbestos exposure cases on the island.
This is according to a report in The St Thomas Source, US Virgin Islands (USVI) on Friday. Hess, an American company, is a major partner of ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, EEPGL in Guyana’s lucrative Stabroek Block. EEPGL holds 45% of the shares, Hess 30% and China’s CNOOC, 25%.
The report said that Hess Corporation has agreed to pour US$106 million into a trust for former refinery workers and their families injured by asbestos exposure in St. Croix, according to court records seen on Friday.
The agreement, filed with a Texas bankruptcy court Wednesday, sets aside US$90 million for claimants who had already filed, US$15 million for potential future claims, and US$1 million to cover administrative costs of the trust. The oil giant also pledged US$10 million more if new claims exceed the US$15 million allocated by 2030.
The settlement makes Hess immune from future asbestos-related legal action, the report said.
HONX, a Hess offshoot, had filed for bankruptcy as a way of shielding the company’s US$37 billion in assets against asbestos suits, its creditors claimed.
Asbestos suits in the USVI could be especially costly because of a 2021 change in laws, allowing older or sick people to have their cases expedited, the report said. Legal filings in the case allege nearly 60 years of environmental and social ills caused by the refinery, claiming while the oil plant owners manipulated local workers and government officials, they also poisoned St. Croix.
The report said that Hess and its subsidiaries ran the Limetree Bay refinery on St. Croix’s south shore from 1965 to 1998, allegedly exposing a generation of Crucians to unchecked toxins in their workplace. Hess sold the refinery to Hovensa, which in turn sold it to Limetree Bay, which attempted several restarts of the plant shuttered in 2012 — to disastrous ends. In May 2021, the report said that oil spray from the plant coated homes downwind. Limetree then sold the refinery to Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation in December.
On the same day Hess was settling the suits, the new refinery owners were arguing before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that it shouldn’t have to apply for new pollution permits. The report said that the Environmental Protection Agency said restarting the plant was tantamount to opening a new facility. No decision has been announced yet. All the while, the EPA was monitoring removal of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals stored at the facility federal monitors described as “decrepit.”
