Frequently Asked Questions

Apex Refinery Solutions is a US-based engineering and project management firm that specializes in two related areas: refinery renovation management and raw material processing and purification.

On the renovation side, we plan and manage complete renovation projects for petroleum refineries, sugar processing facilities, and precious metal refineries — coordinating engineering, procurement, construction, compliance, and commissioning under a single contract.

On the processing side, we manage and operate refining processes that convert raw materials (crude oil, cane sugar, precious metals) into high-value refined products meeting industry purity and quality standards.

We've operated since 1998 and have completed 340+ projects across 48 US states.

We operate throughout all 48 contiguous United States. Our headquarters is in Oakland, California, and we have regional project hubs in Houston, TX; Philadelphia, PA; and Baton Rouge, LA.

For projects outside our immediate regional footprint, we mobilize a project team from the nearest hub and engage qualified local specialty contractors who are pre-vetted to Apex standards. The majority of our projects are not in California — our Gulf Coast and Mid-Atlantic regional teams handle most of our petroleum and chemical refinery work.

Apex employs 140+ full-time specialists including process engineers, project managers, procurement specialists, construction managers, compliance analysts, and quality control engineers.

For larger projects, we supplement our permanent staff with pre-qualified contract engineers and field supervisors. All extended team members are vetted to the same safety, technical, and professional standards as our permanent employees.

Our primary client industries are: oil and gas / petroleum refining, agricultural commodity processing (sugar, biofuels), and precious and specialty metals (gold, silver, platinum group metals).

We also work with petrochemical manufacturers, industrial chemical processors, and commodity trading firms that own or operate processing facilities.

No. Apex is vendor-neutral. We have no ownership stakes, revenue-sharing arrangements, or preferred-vendor commitments with any equipment manufacturer, construction contractor, or material supplier.

All major procurement decisions and contractor selections go through a competitive bid process. Our only financial interest is in delivering the best possible outcome for the client — not in steering work toward affiliated parties.

We provide both. Apex has in-house process engineers and project engineers who can develop or review engineering designs. For large or highly specialized engineering packages, we typically coordinate with the client's engineering team or a retained engineering firm — but we manage that relationship and are responsible for design review and constructability.

We don't position ourselves as a pure engineering firm (we're primarily a project delivery firm), but we have sufficient engineering depth to manage complex renovation projects without outsourcing engineering oversight to the client.

We strongly prefer the full four-phase engagement because it gives us the context to control outcomes across the project lifecycle. The planning decisions we make in Phase 2 directly affect what's possible in Phase 3, and Phase 1 findings directly drive Phase 2 planning. When we're brought in mid-project, we're inheriting decisions we didn't make.

That said, we do accept phase-specific engagements in specific circumstances — particularly Phase 1 site assessments as standalone deliverables, and Phase 4 commissioning support when a project was built by others. Contact us to discuss your specific situation.

Our primary focus is renovation and upgrade of existing facilities — this is where our 25 years of experience and our specific methodology add the most value. Brownfield projects have complexity and risk profiles that require specialized knowledge of existing systems, contamination, structural aging, and operational constraints that greenfield projects don't present.

We do accept greenfield projects on a case-by-case basis, particularly for processing facilities in material categories where we have deep domain expertise (sugar refining, precious metal refining). Contact us to discuss.

We typically work on renovation projects with construction values of $2M and above. Below that threshold, the overhead of our project management methodology is disproportionate to the project value, and clients are usually better served by a regional specialty contractor.

Our processing operations engagements are scoped separately and don't have a strict dollar minimum — they're assessed on operational complexity and contract duration rather than construction value.

We also conduct standalone Phase 1 site assessments for any facility where a renovation may be anticipated, regardless of project scale.

All Apex project engagements include a 30-day post-handover support period at no additional charge. During this period, our project team remains available for questions, minor adjustments, and troubleshooting as your operators become familiar with the renovated facility.

For extended operations management or maintenance programs beyond 30 days, we offer separate service contracts on a case-by-case basis. These are most common for our processing operations engagements where we manage ongoing refining operations rather than a defined renovation project.

Project duration depends heavily on scope, facility complexity, and regulatory requirements. General ranges:

Focused unit renovation (single process unit): 14–20 weeks from assessment kickoff to handover.

Partial facility renovation (multiple process areas): 26–52 weeks.

Full facility overhaul: 12–24 months or more.

These are contractually committed timelines, not estimates. The master schedule is agreed and signed by both parties at the end of Phase 2, and that schedule becomes our delivery commitment.

We address schedule risk before it becomes a missed deadline. Our weekly progress reporting tracks schedule status against the baseline, and we identify at-risk activities proactively — typically weeks before a milestone is in danger of slipping.

When a schedule risk materializes, we develop a recovery plan and implement it at our own cost — additional supervision, contractor overtime, work sequence re-ordering — without passing the cost to the client as a change order.

Over 25 years and 340+ projects, we've maintained a 98% on-time delivery rate. The 2% that extended past the original schedule were due to force majeure conditions or client-requested scope additions — both of which are contractually outside our delivery commitment.

Yes, and this is one of our core competencies. Many refinery renovation projects must be completed while the facility continues to produce — a full shutdown is often economically impossible. We have extensive experience managing construction within operating facilities, including hot-work permitting, simultaneous operations (SIMOPS) planning, isolation and blinding, and zone-based construction sequencing.

Operating-facility renovation requires more detailed coordination and has more constraints than a full-shutdown project. It also requires a higher safety discipline standard. We build the SIMOPS requirements into the project plan from Phase 2, not as an afterthought during construction.

Every client receives a weekly written progress report covering schedule status (percent complete vs. plan), cost-to-date, upcoming milestones, risk register, open items, and photographic documentation. Reports are delivered every Friday afternoon.

In addition, we hold a standing bi-weekly client project review meeting (or weekly if the client prefers). Day-to-day questions and urgent items are handled by phone or email — our project managers respond to client communications within four business hours.

We also make daily site logs available through our project portal, so clients who want real-time visibility into construction activity can have it.

Our petroleum processing expertise covers the full crude slate: light sweet crude (API gravity 35°+, low sulfur), medium crude, heavy crude (API gravity below 22°), and sour crude (high sulfur content). We've also worked with bitumen-derived feeds from oil sands operations.

The specific processing configuration depends on the crude grade being processed and the target product slate. Our process engineers assess crude assay data as part of the facility evaluation to ensure the renovation design matches the actual feedstock characteristics.

For gold (Au), we can achieve 99.5% (2N5) through our smelting process and 99.99% (4N gold) through Wohlwill electrolytic refining — the latter meets London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) good delivery standard.

For silver (Ag), we achieve 99.9% through Moebius cell electrolysis and 99.99% for specialized applications. Platinum (Pt) and palladium (Pd) reach 99.95%+ through electrolytic and wet chemistry methods.

Rhodium (Rh) refining is more complex due to its chemistry; we achieve 99.9%+ through our selective precipitation process.

We can manage sugar refinery renovations for facilities that process certified organic feedstock. Organic certification requirements impose specific constraints on processing aids, equipment cleaning protocols, and documentation — all of which we incorporate into the renovation design and SOP development.

Organic certification is held by the client/facility, not Apex. We design and build facilities that meet organic certification requirements, but the certification body audits and certifies the facility operator's program, not ours.

Yes. Mixed-metal feedstocks are common in precious metal refining — electronic scrap (PCBs, connectors), spent catalysts from petroleum refining, and catalytic converter material all contain a mixture of precious metals that must be separated through sequential chemical and electrolytic processes.

Our Dr. David Wren-led process chemistry team has deep experience in multi-metal separation using solvent extraction, ion exchange, and selective precipitation. Processing complexity and metal recovery yields depend on the specific feedstock composition, which we assess from representative samples before committing to output specifications.

Legal regulatory responsibility remains with the facility owner at all times — we can't assume that liability, and no contractor ethically should. What we can do — and do — is manage every aspect of regulatory compliance activity so that the owner's obligations are met without requiring them to devote internal resources to it.

Our in-house compliance team prepares all permit applications, manages agency correspondence, coordinates inspections, and maintains the compliance documentation package throughout the project. The client reviews and approves key submissions, but they don't have to generate them.

All our site supervisors are OSHA 1910.119 PSM trained and certified. For facilities that handle Highly Hazardous Chemicals (HHCs) above OSHA threshold quantities, we integrate PSM requirements directly into the project execution plan.

Specifically, we conduct or coordinate Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) during the engineering design phase, maintain Management of Change (MOC) documentation for every design modification, ensure mechanical integrity inspections are completed and documented at required intervals, and develop pre-startup safety review (PSSR) checklists before commissioning.

PSM documentation is included in the final handover package so the facility owner has a complete, current PSM record from the start of post-renovation operations.

Apex has maintained a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) below 0.9 for 15 consecutive years — well below the petroleum and chemical industry average of approximately 2.0. Our DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) rate has been below 0.5 over the same period.

We have never had a fatality on an Apex-managed project site. We have never had a project-related incident result in an OSHA willful violation citation.

Safety performance is tracked quarterly and reported annually. Clients may request our most recent safety statistics as part of the contractor qualification process.

Yes. We regularly work with facilities that have active NOVs or consent orders from EPA or state agencies. In many cases, the renovation project itself is the corrective action required to resolve the NOV — and Apex's ability to manage both the technical renovation and the compliance documentation is precisely what these situations require.

Our regulatory affairs team, led by former EPA Region 9 staff, has experience negotiating compliance schedules with agencies, developing corrective action plans, and demonstrating good-faith progress toward violation resolution. We can engage with agency representatives directly on the client's behalf, or in a supporting role to the client's legal counsel.