The Greater Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce held its monthly luncheon this past Friday.

Rich Hernandez, the plant manager for Marathon Petroleum’s Catlettsburg refinery, was the guest speaker, and he discussed the impact of the refinery in the local economy.

“Our company’s workers help drive the area economy,” Hernandez said. “We provide them with a stable, well-paying job and people like them are the ones out buying cars, appliances, and everything else that makes a capitalist economy go ‘round.”

The Catlettsburg refinery employs close to 800 people, 99 of them reside in Lawrence County, the refinery is also one of the largest producing refineries in the country.

“Our refinery ranks third nationally in output,” Hernandez said. “We produce roughly 260,000 barrels of petroleum a day, which equates to 10,920,000 gallons.”

The oil industry is often marred by controversy over spills like the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 or the more recent BP oil spill in 2010 and are often cited for its lack of respect for environmental health codes.

“There is a stigma in this business and our company is aware of that,” Hernandez said. “But we do the best we can do to follow environmental restrictions and stay within the law.

“I’m breathing the same air and drinking the same water as everyone else in the Tri-State,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is contribute to a poor environment for the place I live in.”

Hernandez also spoke about the importance of the oil and petroleum industry as whole in the day-to-day lives of Americans.

“Outside of the fact that it powers all of our vehicles crude oil is the basis for so many other products,” he said. “Plastic bottles, the fabric that our clothes are made out of all of it is possible because of crude oils.”

The next event the Greater Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce will hold is its annual award banquet. Reception for that banquet will start at 5:45 p.m. and will be held in Riffe Building Rotunda at Ohio University.