Andeavor to transform the Dickinson Refinery into a renewable diesel biorefinery
Type of post: NEWS.
With the imminent start-up of the HVO
plants of Total in La Mède and ENI in Gela on the horizon, a new
investment to transform a conventional refinery into a renewable diesel
biorefinery was unveiled last month. Andeavor (former Tesoro) has
announced a plan to retrofit the Dickinson Refinery to process renewable
feedstocks (see announcement).
Location
|
Four
miles (6.5 km) west of Dickinson (North Dakota).
The
existing refinery is set on an area of approximately 318 acres (129 ha).
|
Feedstocks
and processing capacity
|
12,000 barrels
per day of renewable sources (soybean oil and distillers corn oil).
|
Products
|
Renewable
diesel.
It will
be export to California.
|
Timeline
|
The
project is subject to permitting approval.
It is
expected to be completed in late 2020.
|
Figure 1. Block diagram of the project
(extracted from the website of Andeavor)
This commercial scale proposal is built on a
pilot project at the refinery that co-processes vegetable oil and Bakken crude
to create a 5% renewable diesel blend. According to previous information, the
unit was scheduled to start-up operations in December 2017. For that pilot
project, Haldor Topsoe was chosen as technology provider and Jacobs Engineering
Group as engineering and procurement contractor. The company had said that the performance
of the pilot will help determine the potential for a larger future renewable
project at the refinery. In view of the announcement, the results were satisfactory.
Figure 2. Overall value chain of the renewable
diesel to be produced by Andeavor
(extracted from the website of Andeavor)
Apart from the motivations related to the superior
quality and lower carbon footprint of the HVO over regular fossil diesel, this
kind of investments are also caused by financial and social reasons. Conversion
to HVO production allows fossil oil refineries to compete more successfully on
the market and save thousands of workplaces by preventing closures. The Andeavor
decision will support the growth of the local agricultural sector by providing
additional demand for renewable feedstocks produced in North Dakota.