HollyFrontier lets contract for Wyoming refinery conversion

HollyFrontier Corp.’s Cheyenne Renewable Diesel Co. LLC has let a contract to Triten Corp. subsidiary IAG, Houston, Tex., to provide project management on the operator’s previously announced plan to permanently cease processing of crude oil at its 52,000-b/d refinery in Cheyenne, Wyo., and convert the plant into a renewable diesel refinery by 2022 as part of the operator’s increased focus on expanding and integrating its renewables business (OGJ Online, June 2, 2020).

Alongside project management, IAG also will deliver project controls and construction management for the proposed refinery conversion, the service provider said.

IAG, however, did not disclose a value of the Oct. 5 contract.

Approved by HollyFrontier’s board of directors on May 29, the proposed Cheyenne conversion project will involve repurposing the refinery’s current footprint and a portion of its existing assets to enable production of 90 million gal/year (6,000 b/d) of renewable diesel.

HollyFrontier, which began winding down Cheyenne’s traditional petroleum refining operations on Aug. 3 to begin work on converting certain unidentified units and hardware of the refinery for renewable diesel production, plans to complete renewable diesel units (RDU) at the site during first-quarter 2022 at an estimated cost of $125-$175 million, the operator said in its second-quarter 2020 earnings report to investors.

The Cheyenne refinery conversion project also comes as part the operator’s broader plan to spend $650-750 million between 2019 and 2022 to make the renewables segment a larger part of its financial and operational future.