The Pine Bend Refinery is the largest

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

, located in the

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

suburbs of Rosemount and

Inver Grove Heights Inver Grove Heights is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 35,801 at the 2020 census. The city was formed on March 9, 1965, with the merger of the village of Inver Grove and Inver Grove Township. It is one of 1 ...

next to southern split of

U.S. Highway 52 U.S. Route 52 (US 52) is a major United States highway in the central United States that extends from the northern to southeastern region of the United States. Contrary to most other even-numbered U.S. Highways, US 52 primarily follows ...

and

Minnesota State Highway 55 Minnesota State Highway 55 (MN 55) is a highway in west-central, central, and east-central Minnesota, which runs from the North Dakota state line near Tenney and continues east and southeast to its eastern terminus at its intersection with U.S. Hi ...

. The refinery is notable for being the largest in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

to be located in a state without any oil wells. Overall, it ranked 14th in the country as of 2012 by production, with a nameplate capacity of per day. The facility is owned by

Flint Hills Resources Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the ...

(FHR), a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

Koch Industries Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in th ...

History

The plant was first constructed in 1955 by the Great Northern Oil Company with a capacity of 25,000 barrels per day. Koch Industries purchased a controlling interest in the plant in 1969. Since then, capacity has grown more than tenfold. As of 2001, Minnesotans were using a total of of

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

per day, and fuel use continues to climb in the region by about 2% annually. About 70% of the gasoline fuel used in the state comes from Pine Bend and the nearby St. Paul Park Refinery, while most of the rest comes from the

Mandan Refinery The Mandan Refinery is the largest oil refinery in North Dakota, located within the northeastern corner of the city limits of Mandan, ND just north off Exit 153 of Interstate 94. As of 2022 it has a capacity of per day. The facility is owned by ...

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

, and the Superior Refinery in

Superior, Wisconsin , native_name_lang = oj , nickname = , total_type = , motto = , image_skyline = Tower Avenue.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = Downtown Superior , ima ...

. Only 40 to 50% of Pine Bend's output is used within the state.

Facility renovation

In 2006 the plant underwent a "$350 million project to produce a diesel fuel containing substantially less sulfur." In 2012 the company proposed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a $400 million upgrade to help move the refinery "closer to its processing capacity of 320,000 barrels of crude per day and also reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide". It was estimated that the refinery was responsible for 2% of Minnesota's total greenhouse-gas emissions, about 3.5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. The expansion is also expected to increase the "average daily contract workforce to more than 1,000 workers". If approved by the EPA, the upgrade is set to begin in 2014, and include the replacement of the plant's three less-efficient

heaters A heater is an appliance whose purpose is to generate heat for a building. Heater or Heaters may also refer to: Science, technology and engineering * Central heating, a system used to heat an entire building Devices * Aquarium heater, in fishkee ...

with two state-of-the-art model heaters, upgrades to an existing process heater, as well as improvements to the

cooling tower A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and ...

Environmental and safety record

The site was placed on the

National Priorities List The National Priorities List (NPL) is the priority list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanup) financed under the federal Superfund program. Environmental Protec ...

in 1986, and recovery wells, ground water gradient control, and soil gas extraction were installed and implemented between 1988 and 2004 in order to recover any oil that had been spilled in the storage tank area of the 1,200-acre site during previous decades. Though FHR had paid almost $19 million in environmental fines in the 1990s and 2000, by 1999 the company had begun making changes to improve efficiency and minimize environmental impact. By 2005 the refinery was "producing more gasoline, jet and other fuels while managing to cut harmful emissions into the air, water and ground by more than 50 percent since 1999", and took first place in the annual Minnesota Environmental Initiative awards that year.St. Anthony, Neal (May 5, 2005)
On business: The winners: Environment, ethics, investors.
''

Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

''. The Pine Bend refinery and the northern division of the Koch Pipeline Company won multiple awards in Occupational Safety from the Minnesota Safety Council since 2000, including the Governor's Safety Award for Outstanding Achievement. The awards recognized "a sustained track record of safety performance," as exemplified by "sustained reductions in OSHA recordable incidents by 86 percent at Pine Bend since 1993 and by 86 percent at Koch Pipeline Company's Northern Division since 1995." The Pine Bend refinery also received four safety awards at the

National Petrochemical and Refiners Association National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

(NPRA) conference in 2001. It earned a Clear Air Award from the EPA in 2004 and a Special Recognition Certificate for its Clean Air Awards Program from the EPA in 2005. It also received the Minnesota Conservation Award from

Xcel Energy Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four oper ...

for saving 8.7 million

kilowatt hour A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

s during 2006. The refinery has been a MNSTAR-designated site since 2005, meaning that the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry considers it a safe workplace with effective safety and health-management systems. The refinery earned the Wastewater Treatment Facility Operational Award in 2011 and the Operator Award in 2010 from the

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is a Minnesota state agency that monitors environmental quality, offers technical and financial assistance, and enforces environmental regulations for the State of Minnesota. The MPCA finds and clean ...

. It has also earned several

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) is an American trade association, founded in 1902 as the National Petroleum Association. It became the National Petroleum Refiners Association in 1961, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Ass ...

' safety awards, including Meritorious Safety Performance and Gold awards. FHR's products terminals in Minnesota have received the Platinum Safety Award from the International Liquid Terminals Association for their commitment to continuous safety improvement. Also, the Pine Bend refinery earned the Minnesota Safety Council's highest safety award, the Award of Honor for three consecutive years, in addition to winning the MSC's Outstanding Achievement Award.

Pipeline system

Most

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

enters and exits the plant through a Koch-owned, 537-mile pipeline system that stretches across Minnesota and Wisconsin. 80% of the incoming oil is

heavy crude Heavy crude oil (or extra heavy crude oil) is highly-viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions. It is referred to as "heavy" because its density or specific gravity is higher than that of light cru ...

from the Alberta Oil Sands in Canada and is brought from the northwest to the facility through the Lakehead and

pipelines. Additional crude comes from the south via the Wood River Pipeline, though plans are in place to reverse the flow of that line. The plant has a dedicated pipeline to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that provides

jet fuel Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial a ...

for aircraft. Another major exit route for distilled products is the Wisconsin Pipeline, which brings fuel eastward into the neighboring state. Fuel is also distributed by

semi-trailer truck A semi-trailer truck, also known as a semitruck, (or semi, eighteen-wheeler, big rig, tractor-trailer or, by synecdoche, a semitrailer) is the combination of a tractor unit and one or more semi-trailers to carry freight. A semi-trailer ...

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

cars, and, occasionally, river

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

s. Pine Bend Refinery

dredges Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

sediment from the nearby Mississippi River to ensure that its barges don't bottom out.

References

External links

FHRPineBend.com
collaborative site between Flint Hills Resources and MCEA
Flint Hills Resources: Minnesota
{{Koch Industries Energy infrastructure completed in 1955 Buildings and structures in Dakota County, Minnesota Oil refineries in the United States Energy infrastructure in Minnesota Superfund sites in Minnesota Koch Industries 1955 establishments in Minnesota