Safety-Kleen Canada broke ground recently on a $26 million expansion of its Breslau, Ontario, rerefinery that will raise by 25 percent both its annual processing capacity to 191 million liters of used oil and its production capacity to 2,300 barrels per day of API Group II rerefined base oil.
The expansions major components will include adding a new vacuum distillation tower as part of the Breslau refinerys distillation unit, and a fractionator in its hydrotreating unit, Dale MacIntyre, vice president of Safety-Kleen Canadian Refinery Operations, told Lube Report. In terms of construction timing, were looking at summer 2012 for commissioning the expansion, he said.
The timing was right to start work on the expansion, he noted.
Weve had it on our plan for some time to expand the capacity of this refinery, MacIntyre observed. We had this expansion approved in 2007, but placed the project on hold because of the rapid run up in commodity prices in 2008. That also had an effect on equipment and procurement availability, he added.
All of the Breslau plants current 1,800 b/d base oil capacity is now considered Group II, thanks to continual improvement in feedstock quality, according to MacIntyre. For the 2009 Lubricating Oil and Wax Capacities Report by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, Safety-Kleen added 800 b/d of Group II capacity to the Breslau rerefinery, while adjusting the Group I capacity there from 1,500 b/d to 1,000 b/d, also citing continual improvement in feedstock quality.
Safety-Kleen has a larger rerefinery in E. Chicago, Ind., that has 4,600 b/d of combined Group I and II capacity.