Calumet is a specialty petroleum products manufacturer, operating 135,000 bpd of refining capacity in the United States, and producing some 1,500 different products.

Calumet recently announced its plans to expand its Karns City facility with the addition of a GTL plant of approximately 1,000 bpd capacity. Calumet selected Oxford’s Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology for this facility, which is being designed and delivered by Ventech Engineers, specialists in modular processing plants. Calumet intends to use the FT products as feedstock for the production of ultra-high quality speciality products.

The plant design is expected to be complete by the end of 2012, with site specific engineering and a decision to begin fabrication occurring in the first half of 2013. Calumet intends to provide the majority, if not all of the funding for this project, and to start production in the second half of 2014. Any remaining funding will be provided by Calumet’s other project partners.

A final decision by Calumet to proceed with fabrication is expected to generate revenues to Oxford of $10 million during 2013 and 2014 (involving the supply of multiple FT reactors with nominal capacity of 125 bpd each, containing a total of several tonnes of FT catalyst). Operation of the plant is expected to generate more than $30 million of income from ongoing supply of FT catalyst over the first twenty years of production.

Due to the historically large gap between high oil prices and low gas prices in North America, we’re experiencing very strong interest from potential clients keen to take advantage of this arbitrage opportunity. We are confident of the coming growth of GTL in North America and elsewhere, and of playing a leading role in this emerging market.

—Roy Lipski, CEO of Oxford Catalysts Group