Pine Bend Refinery

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The Pine Bend Refinery is the largest oil refinery in Minnesota, located in the Twin Cities suburbs of Rosemount and Inver Grove Heights next to southern split of U.S. Highway 52 and Minnesota State Highway 55. The refinery is notable for being the largest in the United States to be located in a state without any oil wells. Overall, it ranks 14th in the country as of January 1, 2005, with an input capacity of 265,000 barrels (42,131 m³, 11,130,000 gallons, or 42,131,633 liters) per day [1]. The facility is owned by Flint Hills Resources, a subsidiary of Koch Industries (pronounced the same as "Coke"). It is colloquially referred to as the "Koch Refinery."

The plant was first constructed in 1955 by the Great Northern Oil Company. Koch purchased a controlling interest in the plant in 1969. Since then, capacity has been tripled.

Most petroleum enters and exits the plant through pipelines. Most of the incoming crude oil comes from oil fields in Canada and is brought from the northwest to the facility through the Lakehead and Minnesota pipelines. Additional crude comes from the south via the Wood River Pipeline, though plans are in place to reverse the flow of that line.

The plant has a dedicated pipeline to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that provides much of the jet fuel for aircraft. Another major exit route for distilled products is the Wisconsin Pipeline, which brings fuel eastward into the neighboring state. Fuel is also distributed by semi-trailer trucks, railroad cars, and, occasionally, river barges.

In the 1990s and the year 2000, Koch was forced to pay US$19 million in environmental fines because of improper management of emissions. In 1999, the company accepted a challenge from the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) to set up an independent monitoring group to keep track of emissions at the plant. Emissions were reduced to below 50% of 1997 levels, the last year for which data was available at the time. In nearby Rosemount and Apple Valley, incidence of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, especially among children and the elderly, were almost double national average levels for much of that time.

As of 2001, Minnesotans were using a total of 7.2 million gallons of gasoline per day, and fuel use continues to climb in the region by about 2% annually. About 70% of the gasoline fuel used in the state comes from Pine Bend and the nearby St. Paul Park Refinery, while most of the rest comes from a combination of the Mandan Refinery in North Dakota, and the Superior Refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. 40 to 50% of Pine Bend's output is used within the state. Flint Hills is currently planning a $100 million expansion to increase capacity at the plant to about 330,000 barrels per day.