USD275 million refinery expansion slated to add 30 jobs and double capacity

Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP will double production and add 30 permanent jobs at its Great Falls oil refinery in the next two years, a company spokesman said. Montana Refining historically has employed about 100 workers.
Noel Ryan, director of investor relations at the Indianapolis-based parent of Calumet Montana Refining LLC, confirmed plans to invest USD275 million in the Great Falls site with improvements expected to be completed by the third quarter of fiscal year 2015, ending September 30.
Additional refinery capacity at Montana Refining will produce larger amounts of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and diluent, Ryan said, but will not add to the product mix. Montana Refining products will continue to be sold in regional markets.
The expansion centers on a 20,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) crude unit. Calumet already has purchased a 25,000 bpd hydrocracker as part of the expansion, Ryan said. Hydrocrackers use pressurized hydrogen to break down heavier oil and desulfurize finished products.
Some oil industry sources have suggested that Montana Refining diluents would be shipped to Canada where they could be added to pipelines carrying Alberta’s thick tar sands oil to help it flow better, but Calumet has never confirmed this.
The improvements will bump capacity at Montana Refining from 10,000 bpd to 20,000 bpd. At its current capacity, the Great Falls refinery recently was ranked 121st of 134 operating refineries in the United States. The expansion should push Montana Refining to about the 110th spot.
By comparison, the ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Cenex Harvest States refineries in the Billings area refine around 60,000 bpd each.
Calumet bought Montana Refining Co. on Oct. 1, 2012, for USD201 million from Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd. Connacher bought the property in 2006.
Calumet Specialty Products has been busy in the last year. In January, the company completed acquisition of NuStar Refining’s San Antonio refinery, crude-oil terminal and crude pipeline for USD115 million. In late March, along with partner MDU Resources Group Inc., Calumet Specialty Products began construction on the USD300 million, 20,000 bpd Dakota Prairie Refinery west of Dickinson, N.D., with a specific product mix aimed at supplying diesel fuel to the booming Bakken oilfields.
(August 8, 2013)