About HF Sinclair / Sonneborn

HF Sinclair is a multi-billion dollar oil and gas company with many subdivisions and specialties, one of which is Sonneborn, which was purchased and became part of the company in 2019. Sonneborn is the worlds largest manufacturer of white oils (such as mineral oil and paraffin), and also produces waxes and lubricants. The materials exported by Sonneborn go to many different customers and are used in a wide array of applications, such as pharmaceuticals, beauty and shower products, polymer products, food products, and many more. It has actually been quite eye opening to see how many everyday and essential items are made from petroleum-based materials. At the same time, it's also crazy how many steps there are in their production and how many smart professionals manage each individual stage. I'm clearly not an expert (yet), but I will attempt to outline the different areas of the plant as well as I can, based on the information I got from our tours.

The Sonneborn plant consists of many constantly working parts that all play a role into the production and exportation of its products. First, unprocessed materials from crude oil refinery arrive at the plant by the railroad and pipelines and begin their journey at the hydrotreater at the top of the plant. It hydrogenates the organic components in the oil and separates it from any

My view of the hydrotreater during a tour

unwanted biproducts. This reaction occurs under very high heat with an extremely pressurized stream of hydrogen gas (which Sonneborn also produces itself at the hydrotreater via natural gas). At multiple points in this process, samples are sent to the lab (where I will be) to see if the current batch is good to go to the next step of the process or if it needs to be treated again.

Pipeline running in and out of the hydrotreater

From here, the products are sent to the lower part of the plant for processing into waxes, white oils, and lubricants. Many of these products are mainstream oils and waxes, while we also take hyper-specific orders and create very unique batches of products for specific customers, such as PPG Paints. Between the multiple steps of these processes, samples are constantly sent to us chemists in the lab to evaluate their composition for properties such as purity and toxicity. Without our duties in the lab, products could be exported without meeting proper regulations and pose a risk to the health and safety of the eventual consumer.

The plant also features its own water treatment facility, in order to maintain environmental safety and save costs exporting wastewater, and its own boilerhouse where steam is produced in-house.

The far north side of the plant is home to the shipping and packaging warehouse, where products are packed into barrels to ship or loaded into tankers and oil cars to reach the customer. In the lab, we must give the okay for all exported products before they are released from the plant.

Photo shows part of the railroad exiting the plant, along with pipelines, white oil storage tanks, and the boilerhouse in the background (building with the smokestacks)