LEAP Program Tour: Flint Hill Resources

The LEAP Program started off the day at the Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota; where we were welcomed at their main office by Flint Hills Charles Boan, General Manager of Asphalt and Gayle Fee, Asphalt laboratory manager with a wonderful presentation on the vast operation of the company. Afterwards the LEAP group was given a bus tour around the refinery and were able to see hundreds of miles of pipelines in this facility required to produce diesel, jet fuel, coke, C3/C4, and heavy oil products using all the materials from the process of distillation accompanied by testing at different stages with the onsite facility.

The refinery utilizes many products from the facility itself as well as other Flint Hills facilities from the ammonium thiosulfate for fertilizer to coke.  The facility over the last five years been EPA ENERGY STAR certified for energy efficiency for manufacturing plants and the water  treatment for utilization of bacteria to consume byproduct for reconstituted water.

The Pine Bend refinery was spectacular to witness in person, especially all the working parts and continue further in the day at the following facilities. The 350,000 barrels of crude oil refined daily, and the 25,000 barrels of asphalt produced show how the Flint Hills refinery produce ten percent of asphalt need in the United States.

We headed to lunch at a Buffalo tap and grill in the town of Savage, Minnesota where we visited the Flint Hills Polymer facility in the afternoon. The introduction on how the asphalt binders were modified down stream from the products of the refinery.

Back Row: Ellie Kenny, Kim Gessner, Jenny Sasser, Alan Campos, Jorge Campos, Carlos Lopez, Christine Hagele, Kristy Eisentrager. Front Row: Donna Kwapis, Ricardo Romero.

The SBR (Styrene butadiene rubber) and SB latex for the modification of certain products at the Polymer facility. On a decent day, 70 loads per day, busier days would be more than 100 loads per day at the facility. HMI (Human Machine Interface) controls the ability for drivers to load themselves after initial training to the process of loading. Testing is done first batch of the day from the sampler at the rack and the Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR) test done at location while the rest of the sample taken to the Emulsions laboratory for further testing at the Emulsions plant facility.

To round up the tour we visited the Emulsion Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota located beautifully next to the Mississippi River and able to see the complete process of manufacturing from crude oil to asphalt emulsion products. The plant showed the ultimate process in producing the emulsion asphalt with the same dedication of the previous facilities in the cleanliness and environmental safety. It was stunning to be able to see the Flint Hills Resources facilities and the expansive systems at place in all three of the tour facilities.