The Irving refinery in Saint John is Canada's largest, producing over 300,000 barrels of quality finished energy products per day. From that daily production, we export approximately 175,000 barrels of petroleum products to the US Northeast, including 100,000 barrels of reformulated gasoline (RFG)—that's about 42% of all Canadian petroleum exports and about 45.5% of US RFG imports.
To learn more about how a refinery works, explore our interactive tutorial below, or check out our Refinery Fast Facts for more about our own refinery.
Refinery Fast Facts
When we built our refinery in 1960, we laid it out in a unique line formation across our 780-acre site, allowing for future expansions in 1971, 1974, and in 2000, our 1.5 billion upgrade."
Since 2003, we have invested over $150 million to produce ultra-low sulphur diesel, which has a sulphur content of 15 parts per million (ppm) or less. That's a 97 per cent reduction from today's industry standard for on-road diesel, which allows for a maximum sulphur content of 500 ppm.
We're proud of these firsts:
First Canadian refiner to make high octane gasoline without the use of lead additives.
First to offer low-sulphur gasoline, 5 years ahead of regulation.
First oil company ever to receive the US EPA Clean Air Excellence Award.
First and only Canadian refinery to be recognized by Hart World Fuels as "Refiner of the Year"
First and only Canadian refinery on the east coast of North America to receive crude oil from The Acropolis, a ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier)—the biggest of supertankers at 410,000 dwt, holding 2.6 million barrels of crude.
First refinery in Canada to install CD Tech technology which makes ultra-low sulphur gasoline.
First refinery to own and operate the largest product tankers in Canada
First Canadian refinery to offer low sulphur diesel ahead of regulations
First in Canada to use a Belco™ scrubber which removes sulphuric acid and particulates
First in Canada to regenerate sulphuric acid onsite for use in the refining process.
First Canadian oil company to own and operate double hulled tankers.
Fun fact: Our refinery team uses bicycles to get from one place to another inside the refinery.
