It will be a massive undertaking.
If Newfoundland Refining Co. Ltd. gets the green light from the province’s environment department, the company will get to work on a $300 million upgrade.
Gloria Warren-Slade, public relations officer for NL Refining, told the Packet on Monday that once the environmental approvals are in, the plan is to break ground on the project this fall.
North Atlantic filed application on Aug. 25 under the province’s Environmental Assessment regulations.
The company aims to upgrade its refinery at Come By Chance through a process known as ‘debottlenecking.”
According to information provided through the environmental assessment application, the project would “remove process constraints and permit improved production and efficiency.”
Most of the work, explains Warren-Slade, involves upgrading exisiting equipment at the refinery.
Many of the existing pumps, heat exchangers, compressors and process vessels will be modified or replaced.
However, a major piece of the project will see the construstion of a new crude storage tank.
Currently, there are six tanks on the refinery property; each one holds 500,000 barrels of crude oil.
The new tank, explains Warren-Slade, will hold 400,000 barrels of oil. It will be used as a crude blending tank – the equivalent of a giant mixing bowl – to mix crude oils prior to final processing.
“The tank is definintely one of the major parts of this project,” she said. “It is a huge undertaking.
“First we have to survey the land, then clear the land, then put a dyke around it and tie it into our existing dykes, then pour the foundation and build the tank.”
The project will not affect the operation of the refinery, she added.
Pretty well all the work – on both the tank and the systems upgrades – can be done while the refinery is running.
Once the new units are ready to be tied in, she explained, the refinery will do a ‘maintenance turnaround’ – a normal occurrence in the life of a refinery – to connect the new system.
In addition to improving energy efficiency, and reducing emissions — 20 to 25 percent, according to Slade — the upgrades will make the refinery more competivive in the global market.
“We are competing with refineries all over the world,” she notes. “Most of those are increasing their capacity and upgrading their facilities.
“If we want to stay in business, we have to keep up with our competitors.”
The entire project is to be done in phases, starting this fall and concluding in the winter of 2011. Tenders for some of the work are already being prepared.
Slade explains a main contractor will be hired to oversee the work, which will involve workers from many of the construction trades, she said.
“Pretty well every trade you can think of will be associated with this work,” she said. “In the whole debottlenecking project there are 23 different projects. Everyone from welders to pipefitters to electricians, all the trades you could mention, will be involved in this one.”
About 750 jobs will be created over the course of the one-year project, says Slade.
With the addition of the new tank, and other impovements, the refinery will boost its crude unit capacity from 115,000 barrels a day to 130,000 barrels.
That won’t mean more long-term jobs at the facility, however.
Slade notes it doesn’t take any more employees to produce 130,000 barrels a day than it does to maintain the current production. Currently, 500 people work full-time at the refinery.
What this project does show, however, she noted, is the intent of the refinery owners to build a business that will be around for the long term.
Through the environmental assessment process, public comments on the proposal are due by Sept. 30.
An environment depatment press release notes the minister’s decision is due on Oct. 8.
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