Wood River refinery expansion nearly complete

Cenovus Energy Inc., Calgary, says expansion of the 306,000 b/sd Wood River refinery at Roxana, Ill., is essentially finished as start-up of the expanded coker approaches by mid-November.

The $3.8 billion project will raise distillation capacity to 356,000 b/sd and gross coking capacity by 65,000 b/sd to 83,000 b/sd.

When the project is complete, the refinery, owned by a 50-50 venture of Cenovus and ConocoPhillips, will be able to run about 240,000 b/sd of heavy crude oil.

Cenovus acquired its 50% interest in the Wood Refinery and a 50% interest in a refinery at Borger, Tex., with capacity to process 146,000 b/d of crude and 45,000 b/d of NGL from ConocoPhillips in exchange for 50% interests in its Foster Creek and Christina Lake steam-assisted gravity drainage heavy oil projects in Alberta. Cenovus is raising production capacity of both projects (OGJ Online, June 7, 2011).