Today we're publishing a new Economic Profile of Washington's petroleum refining industry, "The Economic Contribution of Washington state's Petroleum Refining Industry in 2015."

In brief:

• Washington's five refineries provide 3.4 percent of the United States' refining capacity.
• In 2015, the refiners directly provided 2,097 full-time jobs, paying an annual average wage of $126,960. In addition, the refiners employed, at high wages, 2,408 contract workers on an average day, doing maintenance, capital repair and capital replacement.
• The sum of all these effects was 25,012 jobs and $1.86 billion in personal income for Washington state in 2015.
• From this activity, state and local governments received $62.0 million in sales and use taxes and $84.6 million in business and occupation taxes.
• Downstream industries, which distributed refined petroleum products, paid $458 million in wages to 16,045 workers in 2015. Excise taxes collected by the state from these industries totaled $206.4 million in 2015.
• Because of Washington's unique tax structure, a Washington refinery’s state and local tax burden in 2015 was almost three times higher than the state and local tax burden of a comparable refinery located in California.

You can read the entire Economic Profile here.