Conocophillips

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who has publicly demanded that Sunoco Inc. account for its decision to exit refining, appears to have mended fences with the Philadelphia oil company. The Pennsylvania Democrat met with the new Sunoco chief executive, Brian P. MacDonald, on Thursday at his office in the capital, and both parties had conciliatory statements afterward. "I think it's important that we look forward now," Casey said in a telephone interview. "Having this discussion today was for me, just speaking for myself, very helpful.

I'm hard-pressed to think of another Philadelphia company that has been in as much of a hurry to dismantle itself as Sunoco Inc. Neither of Thursday's announcements by Sunoco should be seen as surprising given CEO Lynn L. Elsenhans' oft-stated desire for the company to "exit" manufacturing. But on the first day of December, Sunoco announced deals early in the morning and late in the afternoon like a shopping mall on Black Friday trying to keep the foot traffic brisk.

Charles Wilson can hardly wait for Thursday. That's when he'll next report to his job at Sunoco's South Philadelphia refinery. To repeat for emphasis: He is going to report to his job at the refinery. "It's a breath of fresh air," said Wilson, 51, of Woodlyn, Delaware County. Or maybe it's a sigh of relief, one giant exhale, not only for Wilson, but for his 850 coworkers at the plant. Gone is the heavy fear of being one of Sunoco's doomed castoffs, rendered useless along with its sprawling South Philadelphia refinery that had been slated to close.

Gov. Corbett cited "Pennsylvania's Gilded Age, a time of industrial might," with some nostalgia in his remarks Dec. 10 at the Pennsylvania Society's yearly steak dinner for lawmakers, lawyers, lobbyists, and business operatives in the fancy Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. It was an appropriate setting. Maybe too appropriate. The society holds its conclave in New York, as it has since 1899, amid the trappings of the original Gilded Age, when wealthy Pennsylvanians, and the state's finances, were relocating to the nation's metropolis.

Citing reports of improved refinery margins, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D., Pa.) has asked the owners of three Delaware River refineries to reveal their economic analyses that led to their decisions to sell or close the plants. "Many of my constituents question your claims about the lack of revenue ability associated with these refineries," Casey wrote Wednesday in letters to Sunoco Inc. chief executive Lynn Elsenhans and ConocoPhillips CEO James J. Mulva. Casey urged the executives to "publicly disclose all relevant information so the public can make a full accounting.

Exelon's Eddystone Generating Station was destined to become one more weedy waterfront site after the region's last coal-fired power plant shut down in May. That was before Jack Galloway, a man on a mission, helped form the Eddystone Rail Co. The rail venture, announced Nov. 26, has ambitions far larger than the few miles of track that encircle the plant in Delaware County. The project's aim is to bring North Dakota crude oil by rail to Eddystone, where it will be transferred to barges and transported to refineries along the Delaware or in New York harbor.

IN BUSINESS A13 A long time coming Sunoco saw itself as in need of a change. That strategy led to its pending sale. Delco's good news Delta Air Lines, hoping to secure a steady source of discounted jet fuel, will buy ConocoPhillips oil refinery in Trainer.

Shares of Delta Air Lines rose 5 percent after the carrier said Monday that it expected a second-quarter profit of $75 million to $100 million at its oil refinery in Trainer. Delta also said the current quarter would be the airline's first profitable March quarter since 2000. "Running an oil refinery, much like running an airline, is not for the faint of heart," Delta president Edward Bastian told a JPMorgan conference. He said operational issues kept the refinery at 75 percent capacity in January and February.

In the Region Coal-fired plant closing early NRG Energy Inc. , of Princeton, agreed to shut down its coal-fired Portland Generating Station in Mount Bethel, Pa., six months earlier than scheduled to settle a federal lawsuit over its emissions. NRG, which acquired the plant in December as part of its merger with GenOn Energy Inc. , will close the plant by June 1, 2014, rather than January 2015. The closure ends a lawsuit brought by the States of New Jersey and Connecticut for alleged noncompliance with the federal Clean Air Act. The 570 megawatt plant is located 26 miles northeast of Bethlehem on the Delaware River.