Turnaround crews need somewhere to park trailers, stage pipe and keep a shop, and the east side of Casper is where that gets built. The Casper refinery sits at 5700 East Highway 20-26, about five miles east of downtown, with 30,000 barrels per day of capacity. It runs mostly Wyoming and Rocky Mountain sweet crude. Around it, on the corridor toward Evansville, owners put up the yard buildings, fabrication shops, equipment bays and offices that refinery work and oilfield services demand.
We build for those owners. That means pre-engineered and steel-frame shops with heavy slabs and tall doors, truck-friendly sites with real drainage, laydown yards and small office wings that hold up to dust and cold. The work is practical, and the schedule matters more than the finishes. When a contractor wins a plant scope, the building to support it is needed before the plant work starts, and we plan toward that date.
US 20, 26 and 87 leave Interstate 25 at Beverly Street (exit 186) and continue east along Yellowstone Highway through Evansville toward Glenrock. That road is the spine of the area, and every site we build here depends on its access.
East Casper owners rarely ask for a schedule in months. They ask for a date: the day a turnaround mobilizes, the day a lease with an oilfield-services tenant begins or the day a new yard has to be productive. We plan these projects backward from that day, naming each step that has to be done before the one after it.
The usual order is permits and procurement first, site and foundations next, steel and enclosure third and interior and equipment last. The metal building package is usually the long lead item, so we recommend ordering it as soon as the design is frozen enough to release. Where the date cannot move, we look at phasing: a shell that is weathertight and usable for storage first, with offices and finishes following. Our approach to long-lead procurement gives owners a written order sheet with dates.
Refinery-adjacent work follows a stricter safety rhythm than a typical commercial site. Plant contractors expect daily meetings, documented hazard assessments, hot work permits, clear traffic control and strict housekeeping. We run our jobs the same way. Every worker has an orientation, every task has a hazard review and every subcontractor works to our written plan.
When the project sits next to an active plant, we ask the owner for any access or badging rules before mobilizing and respect plant boundaries, even when our own property line is next door. We keep equipment, materials and personnel away from plant roads and separate construction traffic from plant traffic. In winter we add ice management, heated enclosures and wind limits for lifts.
For yard and shop buildings, the early trades decide cost and speed, so we keep them close. We schedule and inspect subgrade preparation, base and concrete placement, anchor bolts and rods set to the engineer's layout, and the erection of the building frame. We coordinate utility tie-ins, aprons and truck courts, and manage the specialty trades through completion.
That approach suits an owner who has a date and a budget. The same project team that checks the anchor bolts sees the slab through to curing, which avoids the hand-off gaps that cost time on split-scope jobs. For owners with several buildings, we keep project team continuity across them so lessons learned on the first show up in the second. Where the project is small, it still gets a dedicated superintendent.
Typical East Casper scopes include a fabrication shop with a bridge crane, a pre-engineered metal equipment building, a truck wash bay, a warehouse for parts and supplies and a modest office. Some owners want a complete yard: fencing, lighting, a scale, fueling area and graded laydown. We build the entire package, including the truck courts and aprons, and we price the pieces separately so you can phase them.
A manufacturing plant or fabrication shop in this area needs power, crane rails and floors that can take point loads. A flex industrial building for several small tenants needs different planning: demising walls, separate meters and truck access for each bay. Industrial users in manufacturing and fabrication usually need the heavier power and floor package, and we price it that way from the start. We help you pick the structure that matches who will actually use it and how long they will stay.
The area's history is a reminder of how industrial markets change. Sinclair completed a two-year, roughly $200 million modernization reported on October 26, 2016, with a new crude unit replacing units built in 1928, 1948 and 1955, new tanks and a gas-fired heating plant. At that time the refinery employed 145 people plus contractors. Big capital programs like that bring waves of specialty work and then go quiet, and the support buildings around them should be built to stay useful when the wave passes.
That is why we ask owners about the second tenant. Wide bays, a sound slab, adequate power and a lot that can take trucks work for many users. A building tuned to one contractor's equipment can be a problem to lease later. Boom and bust is part of the oilfield, and we plan for both. For owners comparing nearby sites, Evansville and the Casper Logistics Hub offer different mixes of frontage, rail and neighbors.
East Casper parcels may fall within the City of Casper, the Town of Evansville or Natrona County, and each handles review differently. The City of Casper lists the 2024 International Codes with local amendments in Title 15 of its municipal code, and its climatic criteria call for a three foot frost line to top of footing, climate zone 6B and severe weathering. Natrona County's own adopted edition has not been confirmed, so we ask the right office early.
Industrial buildings add their own questions: fire protection for high-piled storage, hazardous material limits, fuel storage separation and electrical classification near fueling or flammables. Your engineer of record sets the design criteria, and we make sure the permit submittal addresses them. We also ask about stormwater and highway access, since a new approach onto Highway 20-26 usually needs its own approval.
Send the date the building has to work and the equipment it must hold. We will tell you what can be ready, what has to be ordered now and what can follow.
Mostly support buildings: fabrication and equipment shops, truck bays, warehouses for parts, yard offices and laydown areas. They need heavy slabs, tall doors and drainage for trucks. We design the building and the yard together.
It depends on permits and the metal building order. The package is usually the long lead item, so we recommend releasing it early. We plan backward from your date and phase the work so a usable shell comes first, with offices and finishes following.
It depends on the parcel: the City of Casper, the Town of Evansville or Natrona County. Each handles plan review and inspection its own way. We confirm which one applies before design is final.
Yes. We run daily meetings, hazard assessments, hot work control and clear traffic separation, and we respect any access or badging rules the plant sets. We ask for those before mobilizing.
Build for the next tenant as well as the first. Wide bays, good power, a sound slab and a lot that handles trucks make a building useful to many users. The refinery's own history shows how capital cycles bring and take away work.