Flint Hills Resources wants to spend $400 million to upgrade its Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, where about half the gasoline sold in Minnesota is produced.
The improvements will allow the refinery, off U.S. 52, to more closely reach its processing capacity of 320,000 barrels of crude a day and reduce emissions for nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, spokesman Jake Reint said.
But the upgrade will increase the output of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, so the refinery submitted an application Friday, Nov. 16, to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to change its air-quality permit, Reint said.
Scientists are in near unanimous agreement that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are speeding up climate change. Pine Bend, the state's largest refinery, all by itself contributes approximately 2 percent of Minnesota's total greenhouse gas emissions, or 3.5 million tons out of 159.4 million tons per year, according to Flint Hills.
"That isn't expected to change significantly as a result of these projects," Reint said.
The upgrade is the largest at the refinery since 2006, when it completed a $350 million project to produce ultra-low sulfur-content diesel fuel. In 2007, the refinery completed a three-year, $200 million expansion to its current capacity.
The upgrade actually involves several projects, including the replacement of three less-efficient heaters used in boiling off petroleum products and improvements to the refinery's cooling towers, Flint Hills says.
Although the refinery has a total daily refining capacity of 320,000 barrels of crude, it averages only 266,000 to 277,000 barrels of crude a day, Reint said.
The refinery has reduced its on-site emissions for 10 of the past 11 years, Flint Hills says, and the new projects will further reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 20 tons a year and sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 tons a year, Reint said.
At refineries, nitrogen oxide combines with volatile organic chemicals in sunlight to create ozone, an element in smog. Refineries also are a primary source of sulfur dioxide, the main component of acid rain.
Before making the changes, the refinery needs approval from the Pollution Control Agency to amend its air permit to meet new standards on greenhouse gases drawn up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Pollution Control Agency will examine the application for the EPA, PCA spokesman Ralph Pribble said.
If approved, the projects would double the average daily contract workforce at the sprawling facility to more than 1,000 workers, Reint said. Pine Bend employs 900 full-time workers but can have another 400 to 2,000 temporary contract workers on-site, usually in the spring and fall when scheduled maintenance is performed.
The company hopes to begin work in 2014 if the Pollution Control Agency approves the air-quality changes by the end of 2013, Reint said.
The projects also need final approval from Flint Hills Resources management. Because of the long timeframe, delays or changes in the marketplace could cause management to shelve the projects, Reint said.
Flint Hills, headquartered in Wichita, Kan., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc., which Forbes magazine last year called the country's second-largest privately held company, behind only food giant Cargill of Wayzata.
Leslie Brooks Suzukamo can be reached at 651-228-5475. Follow him at twitter.com/suzukamo.