Already the home of the well-known Cushing Hub, the city of Cushing is in the running for a proposed $5.5 billion crude oil refinery planned by Prairie Energy Partners, a wholly owned Texas company of Southern Rock Energy Partners.
The other possible site for the project, one that is close to being decided, is in Victoria County, Texas. Whoever wins the site will see a refinery with permanent employment of 423 workers.
Once the decision is made on the site selection, construction is expected to begin in 2023 with commercial operations to start in 2025. Whether the choice is Cushing or Victoria, Texas, the local community will see an estimated economic benefit of $3 billion during construction and $150 million a year once the refinery is in operation.
Southern Rock Prairie Energy Partners, headquartered in El Campo, Texas stated it will make a capital investment of $5.56 billion while creating at least 1,250 temporary jobs during the construction that will take several years.
Southern Rock is reported to be partnering with Louisiana-based company UltraFuels on the project.
“With vast refining process experience from its partners and a succinct design, Southern Rock Energy Partners has chosen UltraFuels as a strategic partner in the development of its greenfield refinery project,” stated Steven Ward, who is Southern Rock’s managing member.
“By processing the light, shale crudes, the refinery design reduces capital and operating expenses, water consumption, the real estate footprint, and mostly importantly eliminates emissions including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide.”
The refinery complex will reduce and eliminate 95 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide); and reduce water production and consumption by 90 percent, with 80 percent further recycled and repurposed.
It will also use a reduced footprint of only 400 acres while still producing approximately 91.25 million barrels, or 3.8325 billion gallons, annually of cleaner transportation fuels, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from crudes sourced domestically from the Eagle Ford, Permian, DJ and Bakken Basins.
While most refineries consume natural gas in the process heating units, this proposed facility would instead combine pure oxygen with “blue” hydrogen (produced from refining off-gases) and “green” hydrogen (from electrolysis), with steam being the primary waste stream according to the company announcement.
The Prairie Energy Partners’ refinery will be powered by 100 percent renewable electricity, either sourced from the grid or generated on-site from recycled and repurposed waste heat, geothermal and solar assets. The facility’s hydrogen complex will be the only unit of the facility that produces carbon dioxide, which will be captured and sequestered.
Logistics would be provided by a new bidirectional refined products pipeline connecting to nearby terminals, an eight-bay truck terminal, a 300-car rail terminal, and a four-barge marine terminal located at or near the project site. The resulting facility would be a novel, best-in-class, decarbonized refinery.
Source: press release