American Refining Group officials broke ground Friday afternoon
for the construction of a new hydrotreater during ARG’s 125th
Anniversary Celebration.
“This is one of the more important parts of the celebration,”
ARG President and Chief Operating Officer Harvey Golubock said
Friday. “This has been something we’ve been contemplating for such
a long time … and it has finally come to fruition with a design.
This celebration was a good chance for a symbolic groundbreaking.
We’ve already begun a large amount of work. The hydrotreater will
bring things up to speed (for the refinery) and up to federal
specifications. We’re building on the refinery to prepare it for
the next generations.”
According to Golubock, the equipment will allow the refinery to
upgrade its fuel oil to meet new ultra low sulfur diesel fuel
requirements for on-road diesel fuel and upgrade its lube base
stock production, which are components used to make finished motor
oil.
Hydrogenation includes the reaction between hydrogen and organic
sulfur compounds to form gaseous hydrogen sulfide, desulfurizing
various final and intermediate products in petroleum refining.
The hydrotreater will sit on a quarter acre of land and be
located in the main refinery off North Kendall Avenue. Its
construction also involved the demolition of an old, medium-sized
brick building which had been used as a boiler house. The unit
should be operational by the end of 2007.
“I’m a visionary,” Harry Halloran, the chairman and chief
executive officer of ARG, said Friday. “I can see the hydrotreater
already working and on budget.”
“I once read on a sign on a Christian Science Monitor building,
‘What the mind can conceive, man can achieve,'” Golubock said,
adding the addition of the hydrotreater was possible because those
involved put their minds to it.
“As Harvey said, it takes the mind, but we also need cash,”
Halloran said. “Our county representatives made sure we were all
set to go. We took a run at this six or seven years ago. We thought
we could do it for $35 million. (But we were told) no; it will cost
$75 million, and you’ll get no return on your investment.”
In the end, ARG only had to make a $20 million investment for
the hydrotreater.
“We changed the scope of the project to fit the budget,”
Golubock said. “We’ve had a number of different proposals. We
picked the one with the most economic benefit.”
Golubock said the addition of the hydrotreater was really a
community effort.
“We’ve had support from every part of the community, even at the
state level,” Golubock said. “All of the people here today helped
us in one way or another with various economic development
initiatives. They helped us get to where we are.”
Some of the people at the groundbreaking included State Rep.
Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint; a representative for State Sen. Joe
Scarnati, R-Brockway; McKean County Commissioners John Egbert and
Bruce Burdick; and Bradford City Councilmen Dan Costello and Bob
Onuffer.
“We’re always looking at expanding the economy,” Causer said.
“We usually look at new businesses … but we also have existing
businesses like ARG that has been here for 125 years (and) making
significant financial investments in itself.”
Egbert also talked about the importance of helping the
economy.
“McKean County is resource dependent,” Egbert said. “We need the
trees and what’s under the ground, and without being financially
sound (and technology driven), we can’t get to those resources.
Investments like this help make McKean County’s economy sound,
strong and growing.”
“I think it’s great that (ARG) have a vision and continue to do
it even though people say you’re never going to do that,” Burdick
said. “It shows extraordinary determination.”
