CONOCO'S CITY COMMERCE REFINERY.

• Author: STEVENS, M. EASTLAKE
• Position: Brief Article

More than 2,500 miles of pipelines -- from southern Alberta, Canada, to Montana's Bow River Basin, through Wyoming and Northeastern Colorado -- bring oil to the Conoco Refinery in Commerce City. In the 300-acre refinery, crude oil is divided into "fractions," or different products, by distillation, vaporizing and condensing.

In early August, with crude oil at $28 per barrel, the plant could reline more than $600 million of crude oil per year into gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, sulfur, asphalt and other products.

"Even though we are a small refinery, we are a world leader when it comes to gasoline refining," said mike Morgan, optimization manager, "People from all over the world come to study this plant. We are a small refinery. We have to be better."

Before refining, a typical barrel of crude oil yields up to 35% 65-octane gasoline, about 15% kerosene or jet fuel, nearly 20% diesel fuel, 30% lubricant or fuel oil, and about 10% asphalt and heavy fuel oils. The market demands, how-ever, that a barrel produce up to 60% 90-octane gasoline, 10% kerosene or jet fuel, 25% diesel...