In 2012 Delta Air Lines did something strange. It bought an oil refinery. No other airline owns a refinery. But Delta executives, led by CEO Richard Anderson, thought it was time to do something radical about the painful cost of fuel. Back then oil prices were stubbornly high–more than $90 a barrel. Its planes were burning the equivalent of 260,000 barrels a day, representing a third of total costs.
At the time, Delta figured, $2.2 billion of the $12 billion a year it was spending on fuel went to refiners as profit. By making jet fuel in the company’s own refinery, Anderson and his team figured Delta could keep some of that profit for itself. So they plunked down $180 million for an aging Phillips 66 plant in Trainer, Pa., near Philadelphia.Read more in Forbes.
