Located in Linden and Elizabeth, New Jersey, and bisected by Morses Creek, it is the northernmost refinery on the East Coast of the United States.

A 2010 investigative report conducted by WABC-TV, the ABC flagship station in New York City, characterizes the Bayway Refinery as a "repeat offender" of environmental regulations.

[2] In 1907, Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller acquired several hundred acres of the former Morse family estate between Linden and Elizabeth, New Jersey as the site for his latest refinery.

It was the first facility in the United States to employ the use of hydrogenation process to get greater yields from its crude products, and in 1919 scientists at Bayway created the world's first petrochemical: isopropyl alcohol.

In 1947, Esso invested $26 million in a refinery expansion program to meet an increased post-war demand for gasoline and heating oil, and constructed a second, much larger catalytic cracker with an initial processing capacity of 49,000 bbl/d (7,800 m3/d), replacing the original 1943 unit.

On the night of December 5, 1970 a series of powerful explosions occurred at the refinery, resulting in multiple injuries but no fatalities in and around the plant.

Visible from the New Jersey Turnpike with its giant plumes of water vapor, this device eliminates 7-8 tons of dust per day as well as gases generated from the catalytic cracking process.

[citation needed] In 1979, another "massive early morning explosion and fire at an Exxon refinery in Linden, N.J., injured seven persons, two seriously, and shook buildings four miles away" including the destruction of a process unit.

Under the direction of Tosco, Bayway was able to reorganize and upgrade the facility, and years of operating at a loss for Exxon in the later 1980s were turned around swiftly.

The refinery has since been subject to scrutiny by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

The refinery has consistently been ranked among the worst polluters in the nation, and has been cited almost 200 times since 2005 for violation of state environmental laws.