North Dakota Builds A Refinery, First In The U.S. Since '76

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Investors Business Daily:

Energy: The U.S. has not opened a new oil refinery since Gerald Ford was in the White House. But that will change next year. So where will the next facility be? In North Dakota, where the locals aren't afraid to drill.

When the Dakota Prairie refinery west of Bismarck, N.D., starts turning crude into usable — and essential — products in 2014, it will be the first to open in America since 1976. This probably isn't what the green-energy president wants to have happen on his watch.

But he can't step on the refinery as he has the Keystone XL pipeline, so he'll have to live with it.

America's future as the global fossil-fuel king is a reality while Barack Obama's green economy is simply a fantasy. Fracking on nonfederal land has turned the U.S. into the top petroleum-producing country in the world, having passed Saudi Arabia in late 2012.

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Hurray!

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A Taste for the Refined in North Dakota

4/10/13

 

Ground was recently broken on the first new oil refinery in the United States since 1976. The refinery is being built near the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota, one of the centers of the recent American shale boom. Until now, most of the oil extracted in North Dakota has wound its way to Gulf coast refineries by pipeline, truck and train. But, as Reuters reports, America’s oil infrastructure is adapting to a new reality:

 

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Two more proposed North Dakotan refineries are also heading toward construction. It’s a logical development, as transporting oil over great distances is expensive and potentially hazardous, as we saw in Arkansas recently. Refining closer to the production site helps the bottom line and should allay some environmental concerns.

 

rojects like this can ensure the shale boom doesn’t go bust. Despite having the world’s most extensive network of pipelines, America’s shale oil is running into transportation bottlenecks. There’s also a lack of refineries capable of working with the light, sweet crude that’s being extracted from US shale—most Gulf coast refineries are geared toward the heavy, lower quality variety.

 

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