Calumet lets contract for Montana refinery’s renewable diesel project

Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP has let a contract to Haldor Topsoe AS to deliver process technology for a project currently under way by subsidiary Montana Renewables LLC to reconfigure an existing conventional hydrocracking plant for production of renewable diesel at fellow subsidiary Calumet Montana Refining LLC’s 30,000-b/d refinery in Great Falls, Mont. (OGJ Online, Feb. 23, 2021).

As technology provider for the project, Topsoe will license its proprietary HydroFlex technology for the fast-tracked revamping of the unit to enable processing of 100% mixed renewable feedstocks into 12,000-b/d of premium renewable diesel, the service provider said on Aug. 31.

Topsoe did not disclose a value of the technology licensing agreement.

The contract award follows the first rail delivery of renewable feedstock to the Great Falls refinery for the project in mid-August (OGJ Online, Aug. 23, 2021).

First announced in February, the Great Falls renewable diesel project involves reconfiguration of the refinery’s oversized 18,000-b/d mild hydrotreater—added in 2016 as part of an expansion project—to process 10,000-12,000 b/d of renewable feedstock into diesel at the lowest capital cost per barrel of any currently proposed industry project of this type. A debottlenecking project in 2024 would further expand throughput of the renewable diesel plant to 18,000 b/d, Calumet said in early August.

Officially scheduled to be completed and operational following the Great Falls plant-wide turnaround in April 2022, the renewable diesel plant will have an initial production capacity of 5,000 b/d based on a feedstock of technical tallow and some soybean oil.

Calumet said it plans to eventually process a mix of renewable feedstocks sourced from local farms and ranches—including camelina, canola, mustard, and other non-soybean oils—following the late-2022 commissioning of a feedstock pretreating unit at the site.

Alongside reconfiguration of the hydrotreater and addition of the pretreater, the Great Falls renewables project also will include construction of a renewable green hydrogen plant.

Calumet—which previously confirmed securing a fixed-cost engineering and procurement contract with an unidentified service provider for the proposed renewable hydrogen plant—said it plans to begin renewable hydrogen production in fall 2022.

In its second-quarter 2021 earnings report released earlier in August, Calumet confirmed the process of selecting investment partners for the Montana renewables business at Great Falls remains under way, with funding potentially to come from multiple interested parties.

The Great Falls refining site—which currently processes western Canadian heavy and light sour crudes it receives through the Front Range pipeline system via the Bow River pipeline—will ultimately function as a dual-train refinery, continuing to supply conventional gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, and asphalt to local markets in Montana, Idaho, and Canada, as well as renewable diesel, jet, LPG, and naphtha to US West Coast and Canadian clean product markets.