Assistant City Manager Todd Darden said the lack of available asphalt from the Big Spring Refinery — which is recovering from an explosion and a separate fire earlier this year — is perplexing, at best.

“The county also has this problem, so we’re not the only entity in Howard County — or even the surrounding area — trying to make decisions as what to do with future projects pertaining to street construction or repair,” Darden told the council. “We have enough material on hand now to get us by without any unforeseen emergencies relating to our normal street maintenance, like utility repair and replacement projects.”

Darden said skyrocketing fuel prices have driven the price of materials for the seal coat project through the roof, and local product may not be available until sometime in September.

“In talking to some of the vendors that provided material to us last year, we will be looking at about a 17-cent increase for trucking to get the material here from Lubbock,” said Darden. “It’s just not going to fit our time schedule. We’ll have to rent a chipper until asphalt’s available and we haven’t even done our prep work.

“I’ve talked to the vendors, and they talked to Alon USA officials, and it looks like the best case scenario for getting asphalt from them will be late August and the worst case scenario will be September. That gets close to either the end of our current budget cycle or into next year.”

The Big Spring Refinery — which provides the majority of asphalt for the surrounding area — was shut down after an explosion ripped through the facility Feb. 18, destroying much of the company’s asphalt producing facilities.

The refinery fell victim to a second fire April 7 when one of the plant’s asphalt tank batteries was destroyed by a fire, causing the facility to shut down after having only been back in production for a few days.

Lane McMillan, spokesperson for Laredo Paving, recently told county commissioners they would have to travel nearly five hours north into the Panhandle if they wanted to fill asphalt orders for 2008.

“Dumas is the closest I’ve heard about,” McMillan told commissioners.

Darden told the council the city staff’s recommendation is to abandon plans for the seal coat project this year, and depending on asphalt availability, make up for lost ground in 2009.

“The recommendation from the staff for you to consider is that we double up (on the roadways) next year and hope the plant (Big Spring Refinery) will be online and the asphalt will be running,” said Darden.

The council concurred.

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it