Montana Renewables’ biorefinery expands feedstock options

Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP subsidiary Montana Renewables LLC (MRL) is adding camelina oil as a new feedstock for production of renewable fuels at the operator’s manufacturing plant in Great Falls, Mont.

On Sept. 18, MRL’s Great Falls renewable fuels plant received its first receipts of camelina oil, which the site will now add to its current feedstock of more than 1.5 billion lb/year of rendering wastes and seed oil that it uses to produce renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Calumet said in a release.

"We are pleased to add 2023 USA-produced camelina oil to our existing feeds which already include canola oil, corn oil, and tallow," said Bruce Fleming, MRL’s chief executive officer.

Fleming noted addition of the new biofeedstock further attests to MRL’s broader feedstock advantage, which recently increased following the plant’s startup of a first-ever commercial 10,000-b/d Hydrothermal Cleanup (HCU) renewable feedstock pretreatment unit (PTU) from Applied Research Associates Inc. (ARA) (OGJ Online, July 10, 2023).

“While our ARA [HCU PTU] technology provides the ability to run feed from anywhere in the world, camelina is indigenous to Montana…[a]nd by providing a market in Montana, we are creating long-term benefits for Montana farm and ranch producers who grow most of the country's camelina today," Fleming said.

While MRL already supports 1-2 million acres of farm and ranch activity in canola, corn, and cattle, Fleming emphasized associated seed crushing and meat packing takes place outside of Montana.

“Our vision is to attract seed crushing and meat packing facilities to Montana to further spread the benefits of lower carbon emissions, lower freight costs, and higher agricultural activity," Fleming said.

MRL, however, did not immediately reveal details regarding its plan for drawing related crushing and packing operations into Montana.

Commissioned in late 2022 and co-located at fellow subsidiary Calumet Montana Refining LLC’s (CMRL) Great Falls conventional refinery and specialty asphalt plant, MRL’s biorefinery reached its design processing capacity for renewable feedstocks of 15,000 b/sd in mid-April 2023 following commissioning of the operator’s new renewable hydrogen plant in early March (OGJ Online, Apr. 18, 2023).