Change in the Lawton Westin project reflects change in management team

Westwin Elements has changed out its technical management team, the reason company officials have changed their tactics and now are building a pilot plant.

Westwin CEO KaLeigh Long initially said the cobalt-nickel refinery project planned to use a vapor technology that has been developed and patented by Kamran Khozan, founder and CEO of CVMR Corporation of Canada. But, Khozan — who had been a partner in Westwin Elements — no longer is associated with the Lawton project or the company, said local economic development experts.

Jeannie Bowden, a Lawton economic development official now working for Westwin Elements, confirmed Khozan was the “initial technical expert,” but was unsuccessful when he attempted to do the bankable feasibility study on his vaporization technique. Members of the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority (CCIDA) and Lawton Economic Development Authority (LEDA) said the bankable feasibility study is the document that firms would take to banks to prove their processes or project, ensuring the confidence to secure a loan.

“Banks are going to want to know for sure that it (the process) will work,” said CCIDA member George Moses, adding a feasibility study is not an uncommon step. “This is the only way they can do it.”

“His feasibility study failed,” Lawton Economic Development Corporation President Brad Cooksey said of the work Khozan had undertaken, adding Khozan “made false promises” in saying his patented technique would be enough to guarantee funding for the project. “It wasn’t.”

Kelli Masters, Westwin’s legal counsel, said it wasn’t so much that Khozan failed as he was not able to do a bankability feasibility study, the same study that local officials now say Westwin’s pilot plant will help provide.

After Khozan’s failure, Westwin “pivoted,” said Bowden, adding that Long was able to find a better technical team whose members have a combined experience of 200 years and who have worked to design, build and operate refineries around the world. Those experts now plan to use the carbonyl process, a refining technology that has been around for more than 100 years.

“Now the expertise is in-house,” Bowden said, of team members holding knowledge of the techniques the Lawton refinery will  use and who work for Westwin Elements (and in some instances hold stock in the company), not other companies.

Masters agreed, saying the technical team is comprised of experts who “have done this very thing for years and years, and successfully in other countries.”

Lawton Economic Development Chairman Barry Ezerski said the new technical team already is drawing attention from those who want to lure Westwin Elements away from Lawton. Ezerski said communities in Texas and Missouri, and a community in northeast Oklahoma, made offers to Westwin after the management team changed, but Long remained focused on Lawton.