PLANO, TX – Safety-Kleen Systems, Inc., announced that it has begun blending a variety of engine oils at its new East Chicago, Ind., blend facility, which was completed in late June. 

The facility, which began construction in 2011, will allow the company to blend more of its own finished oil products in-house.

"This new facility gives Safety-Kleen the ability to blend a slate of oils for both passenger cars and heavy-duty diesel engines, and increase the supply of our environmentally friendly EcoPower engine oils," said Dave Sprinkle, executive vice president for oil re-refining. "In addition, by controlling the process at our own facility, we ensure a consistently high level of quality control."

Sprinkle said the new facility will have an initial blending capacity of 20 million gallons annually, with the option to increase production by expanding work shifts in the future. Initial production of blended products began on July 2.

Scott Miller, Safety-Kleen's director of oil re-refining, managed construction of the new facility and will oversee operations. 

"This new blending capacity improves our position as a direct supplier in the blended finished products market, in addition to being a reliable supplier of base oils," Miller said. 

Safety-Kleen is North America's largest used oil re-refiner, annually collecting approximately 200 million gallons of used oil and re-refining approximately 160 million gallons at its two re-refineries in East Chicago and Breslau, Ontario.

"Our existing re-refineries have processed more than 2.5 billion gallons of used oil into high-quality lubricants and by-products since 1988," said Safety-Kleen CEO and President Bob Craycraft.