The Paramount Refinery: If you’re the new lucky owner, how will you play it?

If you had the keys to America’s first commercial SAF refinery, how would you play it? Welcome, new Sheriff in town.

You’re not just acquiring some sleepy old plant. You’re stepping into the long, layered saga of the Paramount Sustainable Fuels Facility—a place whose ownership story is less a deed than a palimpsest. In 2018, World Energy bought the old Paramount refinery outright, from Delek and AltAir, which had been (I think) formed from a surviving part of Team Todaro complex (Targeted Growth) at one time, having passed through at least two generations of ownership before acquiring Paramount.

Yep, Douglas Oil Co. made avgas at Paramount in years gone by.

Delek got it from Alon in 2017, Alon acquired Paramount in 2026, Paramount acquired it from Pacific Oasis which got it from DuPont which got it in the Conoco deal. Conoco got it from Douglas Oil, which got it from Krieger, which got it from Ajax, which built in around 1930, it’s difficult to nail down an exact date.

Then Air Products quietly financed, built, or assumed control of critical infrastructure—new hydrogen units, expanded renewable fuels plants—until they were issuing sale memos describing Paramount as their domain. And now, a Guggenheim Securities teaser advises us that the facility is back on the market, the world’s most heavily rebranded and “Monster Deliverer of Actual Fuel” is looking for its next Daddy.

Who really owns Paramount? It depends on the week you ask. But as GTESI reminds us, it hardly matters. Systems like this endure beyond the names on the balance sheet. They persist because barrels keep rolling, contracts keep signing, and the story keeps getting told.

What You’re Getting

Let’s be clear about what’s in the box:

• Current Production: 3,500 barrels per day with nearly 100% liquid yield—1,800 barrels SAF, 1,056 RD, the rest Renewable Naphtha.

• Expansion Potential: A paused project to scale to 25,000 barrels per day—most of it SAF.

• Feedstock Flexibility: Tallow, soybean oil, lard, used cooking oil.

• Strategic Position: Locked into California’s logistics—pipelines, rail, trucking, port access, and an aviation fuel market desperate for decarbonization.

On paper, this is an irreplicable platform. But the path you choose will decide whether it becomes a legend or a cautionary tale.

Renewable Diesel: The Quiet Empire

Today, Renewable Diesel is the quiet empire of low-carbon fuels. It doesn’t get headlines, but it dominates the volumes. Last year, RD made up 65% of distillate fuels in California. SAF? Barely 2%.

GTESI gives us language for why: RD is a system with high persistence:

• Trust Rituals: Regular earnings calls, expansions, clear policy.

• Narrative Coherence: Everyone understands “cooking oil becomes diesel.”

• Entropy Export: The processes are mature, the infrastructure stable.

The result is a fuel that just works—and keeps working. If your goal is to keep barrels moving and investors calm, Renewable Diesel is the path of least resistance.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel: The Aspirational System

SAF, in contrast, is still learning to walk. Even with subsidies and tax credits, it’s an ecosystem with structural stress:

• Symbolic Compression: Big claims—“the first SAF refinery!”—compressed from complex realities.

• Entropy Hoarding: Conversion pathways like ethanol-to-jet are energy- and water-intensive, with carbon value diluted at each step.

• Trust Ritual Fragility: No large-scale ATJ plants have proven themselves yet. Announcements outpace delivery.

Yet, SAF also carries the biggest upside if you believe the aviation industry’s decarbonization promises will turn into mandates—and if you’re willing to bet on the policies and rituals catching up to the narrative.

The GTESI Lens

GTESI argues that systems thrive when their stories, processes, and symbolic rituals align. Renewable Diesel has that alignment. SAF is still stitching it together.

In GTESI terms:

• RD has a high Inverse Persistence Ratio—its story and reality match.

• SAF suffers from Symbolic Compression Divergence—its story is ahead of its actual production footprint.

• RD exports entropy efficiently—integrated refineries and proven logistics.

• SAF hoards entropy—more complexity, more fragility.

Your Decision

As the new sheriff, you must decide whether to double down on an aspirational narrative or build on operational reality.

• If you choose SAF, prepare for extraordinary trust rituals, policy fortification, and the patience to wait out technological growing pains.

• If you choose RD, you inherit a system that already knows how to persist.

Remember: the molecules don’t care who owns the plant. But the system does care whether it can keep moving barrels through it, week after week, year after year.

What will you build—an SAF dream factory or a Renewable Diesel fortress?

The choice is yours. And the barrels are waiting.