The margin is already in your operation. Let’s go find it.
Refinery Optimization Consulting for Margin and Performance Improvement
How the UNLOCK Framework Improves Refinery Profitability
Every refinery we walk into has millions in untapped profit potential hidden in the crude slate decisions, blending routines, logistics gaps, and the space between functions where no one is looking. UNLOCK is Stillwater’s proven approach for finding and capturing the value hidden in plain sight.
Stillwater’s team has run your kind of operation and answered for the results. Most consultants study your operation and hand you a report. We work with you to develop a roadmap with real targets and stay engaged until the margin is captured.
UNLOCK is not a study, it’s a captured result.
Finding & Capturing Margin
Real margin improvement in 12-to-24 months with little or no capital required. We set margin targets at the outset and hold ourselves accountable to them.
People Who've Answered for the Numbers
We’ve bought the crude, traded the barrels, run the unit, and owned the margin. That accountability changes every conversation we have inside your operation.
A Collaborative Process
We ask the hard questions your internal teams can’t, then we work alongside you to challenge the routines that are quietly costing you margin.
Across the Full Value Chain
Most firms focus on refining. We cover crude supply, trading, logistics, and commercial because the biggest margin opportunities live where siloed teams can’t see.
Build Robust Capabilities
A winning commercial mindset that sustains profitability long-term — so the value we find together doesn’t walk out the door when the engagement ends.
Past Successes
Seemingly obvious solutions are sometimes locked up in institutional habit. UNLOCK surfaces what your teams have stopped seeing.
Eliminating Unnecessary Water Handling Costs
A refinery was receiving crude via an expensive patchwork of alternative pipelines, third-party terminals, and tankers – because production had grown beyond the main pipeline’s capacity. An UNLOCK workshop brought the commercial and production teams together, and the real problem surfaced quickly: producers were routinely blending water into dry crude, right up to the pipeline spec. That water was consuming mainline capacity. Cutting back the water blending opened up mainline capacity, expensive alternative routing dropped away, and the refinery was processing less water. The result: approximately $5 million per year in reduced transportation and water-treating costs – with no capital investment.
High-Chloride Crude Processing
In an UNLOCK workshop, the crude traders with refinery planning and operating personnel identified a simple, high-impact opportunity to safely run higher-chloride crudes on an existing crude unit without major metallurgy upgrades. Chlorides in crude convert to hydrochloric acid in the presence of water at tower conditions, driving severe overhead corrosion and fouling typically forcing tight chloride limits on purchased crude grades. By installing a low-cost caustic injection point on the crude tower, we neutralized hydrochloric acid formation and effectively raised the refinery’s allowable chloride operating envelope. That single, targeted process change opened access to discounted high-chloride crudes often $1-$3/bbl. below the price of typical crudes processed without compromising tower safety nor reliability.
The result was immediate and material: roughly $20 million per year in incremental margin from a minimal capital addition. This is what UNLOCK is designed to do – surface overlooked, cross-functional opportunities at the interfaces and convert them into fast, tangible EBITDA.
CDU Optimization: Operating Pressure Reduction
The refinery crude unit was running at maximum rate in a strong margin environment and was looking to increase throughput without adding capital, constrained by existing heater duty and unit limits. The UNLOCK team recognized that reducing crude tower pressure doesn’t just sharpen separation between naphtha, jet, and diesel, it physically allows more barrels to be pushed through the unit. At lower pressure, the boiling curve shifts, so for the same heater duty you achieve higher vaporization of the feed. That means more of the crude is actively being fractionated and recovered higher up in the tower. At the same time, lower pressure reduces internal density and tower loading, effectively giving the crude column more capacity at the same energy input. This powerful combination – more vapor generated and improved internal traffic – enables higher volumetric throughput while maintaining or even improving naphtha, jet, and diesel product quality. The volumetric improvement, while seemingly modest at roughly 2%, translated into a robust margin increase of over $10 MM per year. What made this possible was the technical, planning, and operations teams working together to challenge an embedded operating constraint and test whether it could be safely relaxed to capture incremental refinery margin. This is exactly the kind of high-impact, low-capital opportunity that the UNLOCK process is designed to uncover.
Unlocking the Swiss Diesel Premium
A refinery’s diesel was already within striking distance of premium Swiss-grade specification. The refinery just didn’t know because the commercial and refining teams had never been in the same room. An UNLOCK workshop connected the dots. Minor refinery adjustments, segregated tankage, and barge access to the Rhine later, diesel was flowing to Basel at above-market netbacks. $10 million per year in higher margins. A 15% increase in diesel production. Minimal capital investment.
Why Stillwater?
Real experience. Real accountability. Real results.
Most consulting firms study the problem and hand you a report. We set margin targets, build you a roadmap, and stay engaged until the value is captured. Our team has bought the crude, run the unit, traded the barrels, and owned the margin at major energy companies.
We bring that accountability into every engagement. When we sit down with your commercial and operations teams, we’re not outside observers analyzing your business. We’ve carried the weight you’re carrying.
At Stillwater, experience runs deep…
Eric Lingman, Senior Advisor
40+ years as a chemical engineer & energy exec | Refining, value chain optimization, clean fuels, decarbonization | Led ops & commercial teams in U.S. and abroad | Expert in practical solutions for margin-, cost-, and carbon-reduction
UNLOCK Value: Eric’s hands-on refinery operations leadership and commercial acumen drives the margin improvement, process optimization, and cross-functional collaboration central to UNLOCK. His industry perspective ensures clients achieve results that are practical, immediate, and sustainable.
Meir Hasbani, Senior Associate
17+ years value chain, strategy & refining | Former Chevron Strategy and Process Engineering | Refinery LP, crude distillation, hydrotreating, hydrocracking, catalytic reforming, and hydrogen manufacturing | Delivered $50M+ in yield and margin improvements across hydrotreating and hydrocracking units
UNLOCK Value: Meir has spent his career unlocking value inside refinery operations — from catalyst performance and product cutpoint optimization to yield improvement and energy efficiency. His process engineering foundation, combined with cross-functional experience spanning value chain, planning, and strategy, gives him the ability to identify margin opportunities and translate them into practical, no-capital immediate improvements.
Vaughn Hulleman, Senior Associate
30+ years strategy & business transformation | Exxon Mobil (exploration & corporate planning) | PwC-IBM & Accenture | BSc Geophysics, Masters Economics, CFA
UNLOCK Value: Vaughn brings a combination that’s rare in this work: hands-on oil and gas operations experience from ExxonMobil, paired with the structured delivery rigor of firms like PwC and Accenture. He has led more than twenty major performance improvement engagements and has seen them through to execution. He knows the difference between a good idea and a captured result.
Chuck LeTavec, Senior Associate
30+ years refining, logistics, and supply chain expertise | Delivered $500M+ in commercial value via margin improvement and cost reduction | Expert in project appraisal, renewables, and operational transition
UNLOCK Value: Chuck has a long track record of delivering substantial commercial value by bridging refining, supply, and logistics functions. His experience in both traditional and renewable fuels, asset optimization, and complex project implementation ensures clients gain immediate margin improvements.
Dave Hackett, Chairman of the Board
40+ years downstream fuels expertise | Former Mobil Supply & Trading | Founded Stillwater Associates
Core Strengths: Refining technology, petroleum logistics, downstream strategy, M&A, policy advisory
Industry Recognition: California Energy Commission PMAC member | Expert testimony to U.S. Congress
UNLOCK Value: Dave’s operational expertise (refining technology, logistics), commercial acumen (supply/trading, pricing), and cross-functional perspective (policy, strategy, M&A) exemplifies the industry veteran approach that drives UNLOCK success. His ability to identify value across the downstream value chain – from crude selection to product distribution – has been central to Stillwater’s reputation for uncovering margin opportunities clients didn’t know existed.
Jeff Kennedy, Senior Associate
18+ years Mobil Oil exec | Led transformations, supply/logistics & strategy | $1B to the bottom line | Turned around major downstream & chemical ops | Entrepreneurial, results-driven change leader
UNLOCK Value: Jeff is an expert at spotting and delivering high-impact margin opportunities across the value chain. He sees things others miss.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of businesses is UNLOCK designed for?
While many opportunities are in refining operations, UNLOCK is designed to work across the downstream value chain, including crude selection, supply and logistics, and product sales. This end‑to‑end view helps capture value at handoffs between functions where profit opportunities often hide.
What problems does UNLOCK solve?
Many downstream businesses leave tens of millions of dollars in margin on the table in crude slate decisions, blending routines, logistics gaps, and the spaces between functions where no one is looking. Through UNLOCK, we surface those opportunities, challenge the operational habits that are quietly costing you money, and build a roadmap to capture the value that’s already there.
How does the UNLOCK process work?
UNLOCK centers on facilitated, cross‑functional workshops that bring together refining, commercial, and logistics teams. Through structured discussions and targeted analysis, Stillwater helps your team identify, scope, and prioritize a portfolio of improvement initiatives, then supports tracking progress and value realization.
What kinds of outcomes and deliverables can we expect from UNLOCK?
UNLOCK produces a scoped roadmap, not a study. You’ll leave with a prioritized set of zero- or low-capex initiatives, each with clear owners, realistic timelines, and estimated margin uplift, plus an initial sizing of potential earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) impact. The workshop is the beginning, not the end. We stay engaged through implementation, providing facilitation, coaching, and practical guidance to help your team move from ideas to captured margin — typically within twelve to twenty-four months.
How big is the potential value?
We have seen tens of millions of dollars in unrealized annual margin improvement across the downstream value chain, depending on asset base and commercial context. Individual initiatives may range from modest incremental gains to step‑change improvements in throughput, yield, or crude advantage.
What makes Stillwater different from other consulting firms?
Stillwater’s team has bought the crude, run the unit, and owned the margin at major energy companies. We’re not outside observers offering theoretical recommendations. We’ve carried the weight you’re carrying, and we’ve answered for the same numbers you answer for. That accountability changes every conversation we have inside your operation. Most consulting firms study the problem and hand you a report. We work with you to develop a roadmap and stay engaged until the value is captured
Are you ready to find what’s already yours?
Our team has run your kind of operation and knows exactly where the value hides.
Book a meeting with our UNLOCK team to discuss your needs.
Explore our Other Services
Testimony & Litigation
Case Support, Advisement, and Project Management
Mergers & Acquisitions
Making Good Industry Matches
Policy
Advising Policy Makers, Informing Market Participants, and Testing Policy.
Strategy & Economics
Innovative, Deeply Informed Analysis Around Issues Impacting Business