Employees at Conoco's Ponca City refinery discuss final details of a crude unit expansion project that helped boost the plant's capacity to 160,000 b/d. The expansion was completed late last January, and the crude unit returned to operation early last month.
Conoco Inc. has finished expansion of its Ponca City, Okla., refinery.
The 10,000 b/d boost to 160,000 b/d in crude capacity is due in large part to employee initiative, said George Paczkowski, refinery manager.
The expansion also stemmed from a pair of improvement projects at the plant's No. 2 crude topping unit (CTU). The unit separates crude oil into naphtha, kerosine, diesel fuel, and other intermediate products for further processing in other units in the plant.
Plant personnel, on their own initiative, last summer improved operations of the 60,000 b/d No. 2 CTU, increasing its process capacity by 5,000 b/d. Another 5,000 b/d increase resulted from recent completion of a 12 month expansion program that was part of a regularly scheduled turnaround on the unit.
The project also increased the crude unit's ability to run a wider range of crude oils, thus allowing the refinery to process a variety of lower cost crude.
Conceptual work for the expansion project began in February 1995.
The Ponca City refinery has a work force of 540. Daily production amounts to about 3.7 million gal of gasoline, 1.9 million gal of diesel fuel, and 650,000 gal of jet and aviation fuels.
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