A New Refinery Is Coming To North Dakota

The Davis Oil Refinery is currently under development near Belfield, North Dakota by Meridian Energy Group. The 55,000 barrel per day refinery will be built on 715 acres in the heart of the Bakken oil field close to existing oil and gas pipelines and major highways. It will produce a full range of refined hydrocarbons, including light distillates, gasoline, naphtha and gasoline; middle distillates, diesel fuel, fuel oil and jet fuel; and heavy/bottom distillates, lubricants base oil and asphalt base.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway runs through the proposed refinery site facilitating both construction of the refinery and delivery of the crude, as well as shipment of refined fuels and petrochemicals. With more than 95% of the Bakken crude being shipped to coastal refineries, there is an economic need to process the crude locally. Building a refinery in the heart of the Bakken will take advantage of a steady supply of below-market crude, as well as a local market for fuels. Natural gas, which is currently a byproduct of oil production in this area, will be used to generate power for the refinery.

The project was granted its conditional use permit and rezoning authorization in July. Project management and sponsors hope the next step can be a ground breaking in the spring. “At this point there is no hurry,” said William Prentice, CEO of Meridian Energy Group. “Once you are past November on the northern Prairies you can take your time. In the meantime, we are starting fabrication at our equipment suppliers in Houston.”

Except for the nearby refinery at Dickinson, ND that produces diesel for local use, the Davis refinery will be the first “greenfield” refinery to be built in the US in the past 40 years.

AIS, creates software solutions for refineries across the US and around the world. These solutions include E*Doc, an advanced controlled document management application, and UTL, an all-encompassing operations management tool for end-of-shift and alarm reporting. We look forward to watching this new refinery’s growth and development.

Here is a link to the new refinery’s website: http://davisrefinery.com/