CITGO Petroleum Corporation is taking 200 local students out to the ballgame for CITGO Day at Wrigley Field as part of the CITGO Lemont Refinery’s 90th anniversary celebration. These students will be CITGO special guests for the 7:05pm Cubs game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday, August 31, with each child receiving a commemorative t-shirt and Cubs dollars for snacks. All Cubs fans attending the game have the chance to join in on the fun: the first 10,000 fans will receive Cubs player decals presented by CITGO.
In addition, Ryan Karlin, the 2016 Illinois Goodwill Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), will present the ceremonial lineup card and play ball announcement in recognition of the 30-year partnership between CITGO and the MDA. Karlin lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), the most common fatal genetic disorder known to affect boys. While doctors continue to search for a cure for DMD, MDA research and clinical trials have enabled Karlin to remain active and healthy, reaching his goal of walking through the doors on his first day of high school on his own. CITGO is the MDA’s largest corporate sponsor, raising more than $170 million to help provide health care services and support for MDA families nationwide since the two began working together in January 1986. In 2015, the CITGO Lemont Refinery alone raised nearly $600,000 to benefit children and adults served by the Northern Illinois Chapter of the MDA.
“Since our refinery got its start nine decades ago, its refining capacity has grown to more than 167,000 barrels per day—more than six-and-a-half times its initial capacity,” said Jim Cristman, vice president and general manager of the CITGO Lemont Refinery. “This growth would not have been possible without the support of friends and partners in our community, and to show our appreciation, this entire year we have been giving to the area through events like CITGO Day. Just last weekend, CITGO served as the Official Fuel Supplier of the Special Olympics Illinois’ World’s Largest Truck Convoy, and later this fall, we will participate in the MDA Muscle Team, in keeping with our celebrations of not only 90 years in Lemont, but 30 years of working with the MDA.”
Located 35 miles southwest of Chicago, the CITGO Lemont Refinery contributes more than $300 million every year to the area’s economy and thousands of volunteer hours supporting local organizations. The refinery is capable of processing heavy crude oil into a variety of products, including approximately 7 million gallons of gasoline per day, as well as diesel, propane and aviation turbine fuel.
The 90th anniversary of the Lemont Refinery is the third major anniversary for a CITGO facility in the United States in three years. The CITGO Lake Charles Refinery marked its 70th year in 2014, and the CITGO Corpus Christi Refinery celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2015.
