Lima Refinery

Established in 1886 the Husky Lima Refinery is a world-scale facility with a throughput capacity of 160,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Products include gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, residual fuels and petrochemical feedstocks. With 580 workers, the Lima refinery produces approximately 2 billion gallons of refined petroleum products annually, including approximately 25 percent of the gasoline consumed in the state of Ohio.

Acquired by Husky in July 2007, the Lima refinery represents a significant step in Husky’s ongoing strategy to expand downstream business and support the objectives of a fully-integrated energy and energy-related company.

Refinery operations are capital intensive and highly automated. The refinery is designed to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year with a scheduled maintenance shutdown every five years.

Approximately 80 percent of crude oil processed is domestic. The balance comes from the North Sea and West Africa. The gasoline, diesel and jet products are shipped by pipeline, with truck and rail transportation used for most other products.

Husky holds substantial oil sands leases covering 510,000 acres in the Cold Lake and Athabasca regions of northern Alberta, Canada. Production at Husky’s Tucker Oil Sands Project has commenced and development planning is proceeding for the Sunrise Oil Sands Project. Husky plans to review options for reconfiguring and expanding the Lima refinery to process heavy crude oil and bitumen, providing additional future investment in the community.

Refining Process

South Side (LIU and Aromatics)

The refining process begins at the Crude Unit which is part of the Lima Integrated Unit (LIU) built in 1970. Crude oil is desalted to remove impurities and heated to approximately 700°F (370°C) to separate it into different boiling-range materials in atmospheric and vacuum distillation towers.

The light material from the crude unit is sent to the saturated gas plant where it is hydrotreated and fractionated into propane, butane, naphtha and refinery fuel gas.
The light naphtha is sent to a C5/C6 isomerization unit where the octane is increased. The heavy naphtha is sent to a cyclic catalytic reformer which converts it to a high octane blend component with hydrogen produced as a co-product. The aromatics in the light reformate are recovered in the aromatics unit to make chemical-grade benzene which is shipped out by rail.

The jet fuel from the crude unit is processed through a bender treater to remove mercaptans, then sent on for clay treatment. The diesel from the crude unit and the cracking units is sent to the diesel hydrotreater which operates at a pressure of 1,250 psi to produce an ultra low sulphur diesel (eight parts per million of sulphur).

The heavy atmospheric gas oil and some cracked diesel stocks are sent to the isocracker which has a two stage design reactor and operates at 1,800 pounds per square inch. This produces naphtha and kerosene.

North Side (FCC/Coker and GDU)

The north side of the refinery takes the heavy oil from the vacuum tower and cracks it to naphtha and diesel in the Fluid Catalytic Cracker (FCC). The FCC makes light end products such as propane and butane which are purified in the unsaturated gas plant and decanted oil which is sold into the No. 6 (heavy fuel) oil market.

The FCC naphtha is hydrotreated in the gasoline desulphurization unit (GDU) which removes sulphur via the Prime-G 2 reactor process to less than 30 parts per million while minimizing octane loss.

The coker takes the vacuum tower bottoms and thermally cracks it in a two drum coker operation. The unit produces light ends, naphtha, diesel and approximately 600 tons/day of petroleum coke which is cut directly into rail cars. The sulphur recovery unit receives acid gas (H2S) from the hydrotreaters and converts it into elemental sulphur in Claus reactors. The tail gas treating unit ensures 99.5 percent removal of H2S and sulphur dioxide (SO2) for reduced emissions.

The boiler house treats water to remove hardness and produces high-pressure steam required for the refinery.

Oil Movements & Storage Area (OM&S)

The Oil Movements and Storage Area (OM&S) is involved primarily with the storage and transfer of feedstocks, intermediate stocks and final products. Major operations include gasoline blending, propane drying/shipping, propylene and high purity normal butane transfer to adjacent chemical plants as well as rail car and truck loading/unloading operations.

Tank storage capability is approximately four million barrels with more than one million barrels of crude oil storage, more than one million barrels of gasoline (and component) storage, and more than one million barrels of distillate storage. There are two butane caverns and three propane/propylene caverns totalling approximately 500,000 barrels of storage.

2008 Plant Production

Gasoline	80,000 barrels per day (bbls/day)
Residuals	(coke, heavy fuels) 6,000 bbls/day
Diesel Fuel	30,000 bbls/day
Benzene	1,700 bbls/day
Jet Fuel	25,000 bbls/day

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is a major objective of refinery operations and efforts are continuously underway to decrease the amount of energy required to operate the refinery. Currently the plant converts crude oil to useful products at 94 percent efficiency. The remaining six percent of crude oil is used as energy in the manufacturing process.

Health, Safety and Environment

Protecting the environment and ensuring the health and safety of employees, neighbours and customers is integral to Husky’s operations. The Lima Refinery has rigorous process safety and environmental management programs that meet or exceed industry and regulatory standards. Husky works to continually improve safety and environmental performance while supplying high-quality petroleum products to meet consumer needs.

Lima Process Diagram

Click to enlarge

Husky Lima Refinery Fact Sheet