75%

Less spent on consultants

 Earlier annual reporting

4 weeks

Hourly calculations

210 tanks

Final report output

One click

THE CONTEXT

A major U.S. oil refinery facility

A U.S. refinery facing demanding air emissions requirements

The facility produces refined products for domestic and international markets. In a non-attainment area, it reports under Title V, the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, and state and local rules. Hourly emissions calculations add to the complexity.

THE CHALLENGE

Seeing the data behind emissions

The refinery’s legacy environmental system was being sunset. Its calculations were difficult to trace back to source data, while spreadsheets filled gaps in tracking site-wide limits. 

The team needed to manage hourly limits and several reporting programs. Yet manual work and opaque calculations made audits harder and kept outside consultants involved.

This required managing:

THE PROBLEM

When calculations stay hidden

 The legacy system, now being sunset, obscured how source data became reported emissions. The team needed traceable inputs and its own control.

External experts handled fixes and upkeep at a cost above $200K a year. The refinery still faced year-end reporting scrambles because the legacy system was a black box—the team couldn't see how data was preprocessed or traced back to its source. This opacity meant audits were difficult, and compliance relied heavily on consultant expertise rather than in-house knowledge.

THE APPROACH

A configurable air emissions system

To replace the opaque legacy system, the refinery, Cority and ERM built a solution that would make calculations transparent and traceable - moving the refinery from consultant-dependent to in-house control.

DURING THE BUILD

THE TRANSFORMATION

Control through reporting

With the system now visible and traceable, the refinery could move from managing emissions through consultants to

managing them independently.

So they started by addressing their emissions control challenges through these five foundational implementation steps.

The team now monitors and updates their emissions data throughout the year. This continuous oversight means they arrive at year-end with confidence in their reporting status—allowing them to complete annual reporting weeks earlier and eliminate the typical end-of-year rush.

Because they can maintain the system themselves, the team now has full transparency into how calculations are being made. This level of visibility didn't exist before. Increased visibility into air emissions management meant time, money, and resources saved—and more transparent, auditable reporting overall.

THE OUTCOME

The facility gained two major operational wins:

Simplified reporting - The reporting process went from 9 separate file pulls to a single, automated output.

Reduced consultant dependency - Annual consultant costs dropped 75% - from $200K to $50K - as the team took control of their own operations.

But the successes don’t end there. Since rolling out Cority at the facility, the team has achieved the following wins:

The transformation showed up in the details. Where the team once raced against the clock to meet year-end deadlines, they now had the systems and confidence to complete reporting weeks ahead of schedule.

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