Safety-Kleen has begun blending engine oils at its new $15 million East Chicago, Ind., facility, which was completed in late June.
Dave Sprinkle, Safety-Kleens executive vice president for oil rerefining, said the new facility will have an initial blending capacity of 20 million gallons annually, with the option to increase production by expanding work shifts in the future. Initial production of blended products began July 2.
We are blending Ecopower motor oil and other passenger car motor oils, heavy duty diesel engine oils and viscosity modifiers, Paul Miller, Safety-Kleens director of oil rerefining, told Lube Report. Right now were still operating within the original design scope, although the plant is expandable to add other products in the future.
Miller managed construction of the new facility and will oversee operations at the new blending plant, which he said offers two main benefits. We have control of our own quality, Miller told Lube Report. Obviously cost savings is a big deal.
Another benefit is minimizing handling of the rerefinerys base oil. We have a tank farm that we pump our hydrotreated rundown to, and from that tank farm we feed directly into the blend plant, he explained.
Safety-Kleen is bringing in about 90 percent of its blending in-house, Miller said. A third-party blender will continue to handle some products that are very low volume, he added.
Begun in 2011, construction included a blending building, a tank farm and a truck and rail loading facility. The rerefinery has 100 employees, and the company hired three more to staff the blending plant, which features an automated, computer-controlled blending system.
Safety-Kleens East Chicago, Ind., rerefinery has 800 b/d of API Group I and 4,200 b/d of Group II capacity. The company also has a rerefinery in Breslau, Canada with 700 barrels per day of Group I and 1,200 b/d of Group II capacity.