News from North America and Canada

Alberta
North West Upgrading Inc., Calgary has been selected to refine oilsands crude as part of the ‘bitumen royalty in kind’ initiative. North West will eventually take 75 000 bpd for processing.

Montana
ConocoPhillips’ Billings refinery will under go a US$ 50 million upgrade. The upgrade includes replacing the two cylindrical drums in the coker. These drums will be coming from Japan and driven through Montana and Idaho back roads through the night to avoid disturbing traffic.

North Dakota
Tesoro Corp.’s Mandan refinery was closed on April 16^th for planned maintenance and upgrades. The company have now announced that the US$ 125 million project will be completed on time and the facility is due to be back online in the last week of May.

Texas
LyondellBasell has announced that it will close the distillation unit at its Houston refinery for four weeks. The unit needs to be closed after it received some damage due to a fire on 17^th May.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/24052010/news_from_north_america_and_canada/