North West Refining is a private, Alberta-based company. In 2004 it was founded under the name, North West Upgrading, by a group of Albertans who shared a vision to create value-added products from bitumen in an environmentally sustainable manner. After a decade of having to explain that North West Upgrading was building a refinery that produces high value finished products, and not an upgrader that makes bitumen into synthetic crude, the name of the company was changed to North West Refining in 2016. North West Refining’s mission is to build a profitable bitumen refinery that makes refined products that set the world standard for low CO2 content and achieves the highest goals for sustainability wherever possible. North West Refining is a 50 per cent owner in the North West Redwater Partnership. Canadian Natural Upgrading Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Limited, also owns 50 per cent of the Partnership. The Partnership is building the Sturgeon Refinery, the first greenfield refinery to be built in Canada since 1984. It is also the world’s first refinery designed to capture CO2 process emissions from the outset.
