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PROCESSING — Quick Takes
Tesoro plans to sell refinery in Hawaii
Tesoro Corp. plans to sell its 93,700-b/cd hydrocracking Kapolei refinery, the largest of two refineries in Hawaii, along with its Hawaiian retail operations and logistical assets.
The company bought the refinery, about 20 miles west of Honolulu, for $275 million from BHP Petroleum Americas Refining Inc. in 1998 (OGJ, Mar. 30, 1998, p. 29). Its Hawaiian operations include 32 retail stations.
In a statement, Tesoro Pres. and Chief Executive Officer Greg Goff said, "Our business in Hawaii does not align with our strategic focus on the Midcontinent and West Coast."
According to Oil & Gas Journal's 2011 Worldwide Refining Survey, the Kapolei refinery's processing capacities include 17,600 b/cd of high-pressure distillate hydrocracking, 11,500 b/cd of visbreaking, 12,800 b/cd of semiregenerative catalytic reforming, and 12,800 b/d of catalytic hydrotreating for pretreatment of cat reformer feeds.
Chevron Corp. operates Hawaii's other refinery, a 54,000 b/cd facility also at Kapolei.
Contract let for Rhineland refinery links
Shell Deutschland Oil GMBH let a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. for infrastructure work supporting integration of the 327,000 b/d Rhineland refinery near Cologne, Germany (OGJ Online, Aug. 4, 2009).
The complex encompasses the former 162,000 b/d Godorf and 140,000 b/d Wesseling refineries, which are 2.36 miles apart on opposite sides of the Rhine River. Shell began reporting them as a single facility in 2005 (OGJ, Dec. 19, 2005, p. 60).
An early phase of integration involved modification of hydrogen and desulfurization units to allow Wesseling to desulfurize gas oil from Godorf.
The Jacobs contract covers project management and engineering, procurement, and construction management services for piping tie-ins, instrumentation, steel structures, pump stations, and other infrastructure components within the refining sites. The work will support connections to two tunnels beneath the Rhine under development by a specialist contractor.
Amine regeneration unit starts at Vadinar
Essar Oil Ltd. has commissioned a large amine regeneration unit in the first phase of expansion of its 300,000 b/d Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, India, after commissioning a pentane-hexane isomerization unit last month (OGJ Online, Dec. 12, 2011).
The company expects initial expansion of distillation capacity to 375,000 b/d to be complete in March.
Optimization will further increase capacity to 405,000 b/d by September, when the refinery will be able to handle 87% extra-heavy crudes.
UOP designed the new amine regeneration unit, which has a design capacity of 160,000 b/d. The unit supports diesel and vacuum gas oil hydrotreaters.
North Dakota natural gas plant starts up
Oneok Partners LP, Tulsa, reported that its 100-MMcfd Garden Creek natural gas processing plant in eastern McKenzie County, ND, is receiving production from the Bakken shale.
Oneok Partners previously announced plans to invest $1.5-1.8 billion for projects in the Bakken shale during 2012-14 in its gas gathering and processing and NGL businesses. In addition to the Garden Creek plant, these investments include construction of the 500-mile Bakken pipeline and two additional 100-MMcfd gas processing plants: Stateline I and Stateline II in western Williams County, ND.
The Bakken pipeline is to be completed by first-half 2013; Stateline I and Stateline II plants are to be completed by third-quarter 2012 and first-half 2013, respectively.
Costar Midstream to acquire East Texas assets
Costar Midstream LLC, Dallas, has acquired over 500 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines, three cryogenic gas processing plants, and associated compression and treating assets in East Texas in a four-county area near Longview.
The assets represent 75 MMcfd of gas processing capacity, 8,000 b/d of NGL fractionation capacity, 20,000 hp of compression, and 30 MMcfd of gas treating capacity. The systems provide midstream services to producers of conventional and unconventional gas sources, and allow treating of off spec NGL and condensate production.
Costar is a portfolio company of Energy Spectrum Capital and was formed in April 2011 to acquire and develop midstream energy structure infrastructure.
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