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The $300 billion figure is deeply misleading. The actual construction cost of the refinery is estimated at $3-4 billion, and America First Refining received a "nine-figure investment" (i.e., hundreds of millions) from an unnamed partner widely reported to be Reliance Industries. The $300 billion figure comes from the company's own press release, which calculated it by combining the projected value of 1.2 billion barrels of crude oil to be purchased over 20 years ($125 billion) plus 50 billion gallons of refined products to be sold ($175 billion). In other words, the figure represents the cumulative gross revenue from buying and selling commodities over two decades of operation — not the deal's investment size, construction cost, or any capital commitment. University of Texas energy expert Michael Webber called Trump's characterization "disinformation." Additionally, Reliance Industries itself never publicly confirmed its involvement, issued no statement, and did not notify stock exchanges — highly unusual for a deal of the claimed magnitude. Industry analyst Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates noted the oddity: "There's no statement out of Reliance." As for "biggest in US history," even taking the inflated $300 billion at face value, Apple announced a $600 billion US investment commitment in 2025, and the SoftBank-led Stargate AI project was announced at $500 billion. Bloomberg found that many of these announced deal figures under Trump were inflated or included pre-existing commitments. The $300 billion figure is not a deal value in any conventional sense — it is a projection of total commercial throughput over 20 years, making the "biggest deal in US history" claim false by any standard measure of deal size.

The claim that this will be "the cleanest refinery in the world" is an unsubstantiated marketing superlative with no independent verification. America First Refining's own press release contained no specific emissions data, no technical specifications for emissions control, no carbon capture details, and no comparative benchmarking against other facilities. The company's website describes using hydrogen-powered systems and processing light sweet shale crude (47 degree API) which inherently produces fewer emissions than heavy crude processing, but these are design intentions for a facility that has not yet been built, not verified performance metrics. Luke Metzger of Environment Texas directly challenged the claim, calling it "mostly a marketing claim" and noting the hydrogen is "derived from fossil fuels" rather than renewable sources, which limits genuine emissions reductions. Meanwhile, Meridian Energy Group's Davis Refinery in North Dakota has independently claimed to be the world's first net-zero carbon refinery, having been permitted as a synthetic minor source under EPA air quality rules — a concrete regulatory achievement that America First Refining has not demonstrated. America First Refining is still in the process of securing environmental permits and did not respond to press inquiries about its hydrogen process. Port officials acknowledged they could not provide emissions reduction details because they were "still under NDA." Environmental groups, including the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, have opposed the project for over seven years, citing risks of air pollution and toxins. Without published emissions projections, third-party audits, or even completed environmental permitting, the "cleanest refinery in the world" claim cannot be substantiated and appears to be aspirational marketing language rather than a factual statement.