Pollution Control and
Waste Treatment at an Inland Refinery
R. W. DAVIS, Design Engineer
J. A. BIEHL, Staff Technologist
Marathon Oil Company
Robinson, Illinois
R. M. SMITH, Sanitary Engineer
The Dow Chemical Company
Midland, Michigan
INTRODUCTION
In the early history of oil refining in this country, it was quite imperative
that refining facilities be constructed near the source of crude oil. This was particularly true of inland refineries that were inaccessible to mass transport for their
raw material. Many times the water course, to which process waters were discharged, was nothing more than a drainage ditch used by farmers in the area.
Unfortunately for the refiners, the pollution problem first noticed by neighboring
residents was the floating oil and the odor of "their" stream. As a result, the
inland refineries of the United States pioneered in the handling of their waste
problems, due to necessity, in order to continue operation.
HISTORY
In 1922, the company purchased interest in the Lincoln Oil and Refining
Company and the refinery was immediately remodeled. The Refinery was designed with process units to charge Illinois Basin Crude Oil. In 1926, Ohio Oil,
now Marathon Oil, acquired most of the remaining stock of The Lincoln Oil and
Refining Company and was completely rebuilt. The refinery operation was then
continued much the same until 1947. At this time, a construction program began
on various new refinery units. The construction included crude distillation,
vacuum distillation, fluid catalytic cracking, light ends and alkylation units. A
short time later, catalytic reforming and delayed coking units were added to the
refinery operating scheme. The thermal cracking unit operation was continued
much the same. The refinery has its own steam and electric generating plant and
the usual tank farm with fuels and gasoline blending facilities. Also located at
Robinson is a lube oil blending and canning operation. At the time of the 1947
construction completion, the capacity of the refinery was 27,500 barrels per day.
This will have been gradually increased to 65, 000 barrels per day by the summer
of 1964.
WATER SUPPLY
The raw water source is a dredged gravel pit located seven miles east of the
Refinery (Figure 1). Water is pumped to the Refinery through two 12-in. buried
lines at an average of 2. 75 mgd. Raw water is used as boiler feed water at the
power plant and as cooling water make-up in the refinery water cooling system.
There are basically two water systems in most of the production units; (1) recirculating, and (2) raw cooling water. Some of the raw water is used as primary cooling water but 87 per cent of the total water is treated in some fashion for alkalinity,   corrosion control,   or softening.   In addition, mechanical water treatment
- 126 -