Pipeline vs Refinery: North Dakota refinery online

bwilson4web · Apr 10, 2013

(Reuters) - On a windswept North Dakota prairie in late March, Governor Jack Dalrymple drove a bulldozer into the fertile black earth and broke ground on the first new U.S. refinery since 1976.

The state's two U.S. senators, as well as dozens of other politicians and investors, stood nearby wearing hard hats, eagerly sharing hopes that this new refinery will help resolve North Dakota's diesel demand problem.

Thanks to the Bakken shale formation, an extensive layer of oil-rich rock two miles deep, North Dakota produces more crude oil than any state except Texas. But because the state only has one refinery, it imports more than half of the roughly 53,000 barrels of diesel consumed each day by rigs that suck oil out of the ground, and trucks and trains that transport it.
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Source: Refineries sprout in North Dakota, bucking the trend| Reuters

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't understand why refineries are not built co-located with the oil source. Perhaps Alaska is too cold (not sure about this) but gosh darn, North Dakota is not that far from the planned tar-sands oil pipeline.

Refineries are chemical plants that can pretty much take any fossil fuel and convert it to useful products. For example, Coffeyville's refinery produces ammonia for fertilizer from the natural gas in the area.

Bob Wilson

Pipeline vs Refinery: North Dakota refinery online

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Pipeline vs Refinery: North Dakota refinery online

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