Motiva Port Arthur Refinery Expansion Project
client: Motiva Enterprises
Location: Port Arthur, Texas, USA
Completion Date: 2012
Capacity: 93,000 bpsd
Highlights
Located in the Port Arthur area, Shell Oil operates this 600,000 BPD refinery on behalf of Motiva Enterprises, a 50/50 joint venture between the Shell Oil Company and Saudi Aramco.
The Port Arthur Refinery Expansion project expanded (2012 completion) production of the refinery by 325,000 BPD with a multi-year project featuring BHTS ThruPlus® delayed coking technology with EPC for selected units (including the delayed coker) by Bechtel Oil Gas & Chemicals under the Bechtel-Jacobs Joint Venture. Now with 600,000 bpsd of crude processing capacity, the Motiva Port Arthur Refinery is one of the largest refineries in the United States.
Did you know?
- The Bechtel-Jacbos JV drove 61,175 piles for a total of 4,500,000 linear feet based on an average length of 75' (852 miles) -- wider than Texas or nine times the distance from Port Arthur to Houston,
- 285,000 cubic yards of concrete were used -- enough to make a towering cube 170 feet high if you poured it on a football field
- 3,100,000 linear feet of pipe (600 miles) was laid
- 5,600,000 linear feet of cable was used -- enough to stretch from Port Arthur to the south edge of Chicago
- Almost 2000 pieces of equipment were installed-- ranging from a crude colum 284 feet high and 30-foot diameter weighing two million pounds empty, to small vessels three feet high and two feet in diameter
- 78,000 tons of structural steel (156,000,000 pounds) was used
- 725 pumps, 19 compressors, 514 heat exchangers and 54 tanks were installed
- The project created 4,500 construction jobs
WRB Refining LLC Wood River Coker and Refinery Expansion (CORE) Project
Client: ConocoPhillips Company
Location: Roxana, Illinois, USA
Completion Date: 2011
Capacity: 65,000 bpsd
Highlights
ConocoPhillips operates this 306,000 bpsd refinery on behalf of WRB Refining LLC, a 50/50 joint venture partnership between the ConocoPhillips Company and Cenovus Energy. The CORE project added a new ThruPlus® four-drum Delayed Coker capable of handling 65,000 bpsd of Canadian bitumen from Cenovus’s Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) facilities. Detailed engineering, procurement and construction was provided by Bechtel Oil, Gas & Chemicals.
Wood River CORE Coke Drum Structure

Did you know?
- The 1.24 Billion US$ expansion also involved a coker gas plant with merox unit, a 105,000 bpsd vacuum flasher, a new 14,000 bpsd naphtha hydrotreater and interconnecting infrastructure
- The Coke Drums in the CORE project are 90 feet tall
- 1,200 workers were employed at the peak of the project
- 15 million consecutive work hours were logged without a lost time injury
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