Flint Hills Resources’ Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minn., is among the top processors of heavy crude in the United States and a leader in providing cleaner-burning and high-performance fuels. In 2007, Flint Hills Resources’ Pine Bend refinery in Minnesota completed a project that increases its crude oil processing capacity to about 320,000 barrels per day. The refinery primarily refines Canadian crude oil, which it processes into petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, propane and butane. Petroleum products produced at the refinery are mainly used in the Upper Midwest. The refinery, which celebrated 50 years of operation in 2005, also manufactures asphalt, heating fuels, and sulfur for fertilizers. In addition, it supplies much of the jet fuel used at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.

To meet growing demand in the Midwest, Flint Hills Resources recently completed a project that increased its Minnesota refining capacity by 50,000 barrels per day. The increased capacity cannot be fully utilized until several other projects are completed including product distribution projects and a crude oil pipeline expansion. The refinery also completed one of its largest projects ever in May 2006. This $350 million project allowed the refinery to produce ultra low-sulfur diesel fuels and convert diesel fuel to gasoline to meet market demand.

History
The Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery is located in Rosemount, Minn., 17 miles south of Minneapolis. The facility went on stream in September, 1955 with a processing capacity of 25,000 barrels per day. The Great Northern Oil Company owned the refinery. The location was chosen in the early 1950s because the Twin Cities area was a growing market served by only one other refinery, and crude oil from Canadian fields discovered prior to World War II could be transported by pipeline systems to the Twin Cities. The area provided several unique characteristics for a refinery — somewhat remote from the Twin Cities, yet close enough to reduce transportation costs and easy access to the river and water transportation. The location was also served by two major railroads at the time.

Koch Industries purchased controlling interest of the refinery in 1969 and renamed the facility Koch Refining Company. At the time, the refinery was one of a few which had been built on the most up-to-date principles of integration in order to assure maximum efficiency in sequence of operations. During the early ‘90s, Koch significantly expanded the refinery by adding process equipment. This resulted in an expansion of the overall refinery layout. This expansion was primarily driven by the need for desulfurized diesel fuel for truck consumption.

In January 2002, Koch Petroleum Group L.P.’s Pine Bend Refinery became part of Flint Hills Resources, LP an independent refining and chemicals company owned by Koch Industries Inc. The facility celebrated 50 years of operation in 2005.