The new owners of Tesoro Corp.’s Kapolei oil refinery say they are poised to take advantage of a boom in North American crude supplies that could allow the facility to ramp up its production of gasoline, jet fuel and other products.

Houston-based Par Petroleum completed its purchase of the refinery Wednesday, becoming the fourth owner since the facility opened 41 years ago.

Par Petroleum bought the refinery, along with Tesoro’s chain of 31 gas stations and other assets, for $75 million in cash, with up to $40 million more in payments contingent on the Hawaii operation meeting certain performance targets over the next three years. On top of that, Par Petroleum will pay about $400 million for Tesoro’s working capital, which consists mainly of its inventory of refined petroleum products, company officials said.

Tesoro announced in June that it had struck a deal to sell the refinery to Par Petroleum after searching for a buyer for 18 months. Tesoro was in the process of shutting down the refinery and converting it to an import terminal for refined petroleum products when Par made its offer. The refinery is the larger of two such facilities in Hawaii with the capacity to refine 94,000 barrels of oil a day.

Par will do business locally as Hawaii Independent Energy. The gas stations it acquired in the transaction will continue to be branded under the Tesoro name.

Keeping the facility in the refining business will preserve about 165 jobs — about two-thirds of the refinery’s workforce — that would have been eliminated if the refinery had been shut down permanently. The new owners did not say if its plan to buy more North American crude would lower gasoline prices in Hawaii.

"We’re very excited to get a new company started. The employees are just thrilled to have a chance to start fresh with a new outfit and keep the whole operation and fuel production here in Hawaii," said Tom Weber, the former Tesoro plant manager who will retain his position under the new ownership.

Hawaii Independent Energy is in the process of filling about 60 jobs at the plant to restore the current workforce of 180 to its full complement of 240 employees. HIE is filling openings created when workers voluntarily left Tesoro during the spring because of uncertainty regarding their jobs. Among positions HIE is filling are operators, welders, electricians, mechanics, engineers and accountants, Weber said.

Once all positions are filled, HIE will employ about 490 workers statewide in all of its divisions.

Tesoro<$o($)> put its Hawaii operations up for sale in January 2012 as part of a strategy to consolidate its business nationally. Tesoro had seven refineries in six western states.

Tesoro received several offers for the Kapolei refinery, including at least one that reached the advanced stage, but ultimately fell apart because of issues with financing. Par Petroleum, with the backing of a private equity firm controlled by real estate tycoon Sam Zell, was able to put together a deal that Tesoro could accept.

While the Kapolei refinery did not fit into Tesoro’s larger corporate strategy, it still offered value as an independently run facility, said Bill Haywood, president of Hawaii Independent Energy. Haywood has 35 years of experience in the energy business, including a stint as senior vice president of refining for Tesoro.

Haywood said HIE’s goal is to incrementally boost production at the Kapolei refinery to about 85,000 barrels a day from current levels of about 70,000 barrels a day. HIE’s first option will be to sell the extra supply of refined products in Hawaii, but the company also will be open to new export opportunities if they arise, Haywood said.

"We’re going to work those production rates up slowly. We’ve got to be able to get back some of the market share that we lost here in Hawaii. We’ve got to work on that," he said.

HIE’s main competitor in Hawaii is Chevron, which operates a 54,000-barrels-a-day refinery in Kapolei.

HIE plans to take advantage of new crude supplies coming into the market that have the potential to push down global prices, Haywood said.

"There are more crudes available today then there were just five years ago. The big boom that’s going on in North America — both in Canada and the U.S. — is helping. There are just a lot of great crudes that fit in nicely here," he said.

Haywood would not speculate on whether the strategy would mean lower prices at the pump in Hawaii.

Bringing in crude from North America would represent a departure from Tesoro’s strategy of importing oil to Hawaii mostly from the Middle East, Asia and Russia. So-called tar sands, a type of unconventional crude extracted in Western Canada, can be processed for use at the Kapolei refinery, he said. It is already available to be shipped from the West Coast of Canada. And a recently approved plan to double the capacity of the Trans-Canada Pipeline will only increase the availability of the product in two to three years, Haywood said.

"They need to get that crude out of Canada. And markets will respond to the activity. We will start to see pricing pressures on some of these other crudes," he said.

HIE also will be looking at Bakken crude being extracted from the Dakotas that is transported by rail to Washington state, where it could be loaded on tankers to Hawaii, Haywood said.

Par Petroleum is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of $289 million. Besides HIE, Par owns or has holdings in Piceane Energy, an oil and natural gas company in Colo­rado, and Texadian Energy, a petroleum transportation, distribution and trading company.

Par’s shares closed down 1 cent at $1.89 Wednesday in over-the-counter trading.

CORRECTION: Chevron operates a 54-thousand barrels a day refinery. An earlier version of this story and a story in the print edition said the refinery operates at 54-thousand gallons a day.