U.S. Refining
BP’s downstream operations refine, transport, sell and trade crude oil and petroleum products. In North America, we are the second-largest refiner and the second-largest fuels marketer.
The refineries at the heart of this modern success have a long, rich history. For example, the huge BP refinery in Whiting, Ind., was the birthplace in 1912 of the thermal cracking process, which doubled the yield of gasoline from a barrel of crude oil, while also boosting its octane rating.
This Burton-Humphreys process averted a major gasoline shortage and consequently helped win World War I. The process was so significant that its U.S. patent was simply named “The Manufacture of Gasoline.”
Modern refineries
Today, besides the facility in Whiting, BP has large, modern refineries in Texas City, Texas; Carson, Calif.; Cherry Point, Wash.; and Toledo, Ohio. These five refineries, with total capacity for processing 1.5 million barrels of crude oil every day, are part of a worldwide network of 19 BP refineries.
BP’s refineries produce a wide range of fuels, petrochemicals and lubricants for America’s highway and rail transportation; industry; home, commercial and institutional heating; power generation, and airlines. (Air BP is a major supplier to airlines, with about 10 percent of the global market.)
Distinctive brands
Almost all of the BP refined products are marketed under the brands of BP®, ARCO®, Amoco®, or Castrol®.
Customer focus, distinctive brands and superior technology remain the cornerstones of our long-term strategy for these products. We aim to achieve growth in the relatively mature U.S. marketplace by further focusing our resources and capabilities on selected market spaces.
Environmental solutions
Besides markets, refineries and their products are inextricably linked with the environment. And BP understands its responsibility to work constructively with all categories of stakeholders to address climate change and find solutions for other environmental challenges.
The search for those solutions is reflected in BP’s decades-long leadership in developing cleaner-burning fuels as well as pioneering alternate power sources such as solar energy.
Cleaner-burning fuels
For the foreseeable future, however, energy growth will be met primarily from hydrocarbons — particularly oil and gas. So research and development for cleaner-burning fuels remains extremely important. At its Cherry Point refinery, for example, BP plans to complete construction later this decade of a $115 million clean gasoline unit that will produce a near sulfur-free gasoline that exceeds current and future product quality specifications.
BP recognizes that fact and, for example, is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new clean-diesel facilities at its U.S. refineries.
Ultra low sulfur diesel
With the addition of a new Distillate Hydrotreater (DHT), BP's refinery in Whiting, Ind., will produce additional supplies of ultra low sulfur diesel fuel that meets or exceeds all on-road diesel regulations. The new unit will have the capacity to produce about 36,000 barrels per day of the ultra low sulfur diesel product.
BP's Toledo, Ohio refinery has participated in BP’s global efforts to supply more environmentally friendly fuels before regulations require them. Our participation includes production of low-sulfur Amoco Ultimate® gasoline, as well as the first ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel in the Midwest. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified diesel exhaust particulates as a prime target for reduction, calling for a 97-percent reduction in these pollutants by mid-2006. Partly through the efforts of the Toledo refinery, BP diesel fuels met this requirement three years before the deadline.
At the company's refinery in Cherry Point, Wash., an $85 million Clean Diesel unit is under construction for start-up this year. With the addition of this new equipment, the refinery will produce ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel that meets or exceeds all on-road diesel regulations.
"BP remains committed to leading the industry in the production of cleaner fuels and remaining the leader in making our products safer for the environment," says Dan Sajkowski, the Whiting refinery’s business unit leader.
"BP's low sulfur fuels are cleaner burning fuels," adds Brad Johnson, BP clean fuels project manager at the Whiting facility. "The lower sulfur enables new diesel engine technology to reduce fine particulate emissions along with sulfur emissions. These new diesel engines can only work with the ultra low sulfur diesel fuel. Ultra low sulfur diesel will also help existing engines reduce undesirable emissions."
Reducing the amount of sulfur in diesel enables catalyzed aftertreatment technology similiar to what the removal of lead in gasoline did for catalytic converters. And this results in lower particulate matter (PM), carbon mononoxide (CO) and total hydrocarbon (HC) emissions including air toxics and ozone precursors.
BP has been producing ultra-low-sulfur diesel in California six years ahead of the federal regulations, which restricts sulfur in diesel fuel to no more than 15 ppm. In the midwest, BP has also been producing a 30 ppm ULSD for large fleets customers.
Clean Cities
In BP's U.S Clean Cities program that require reformulated gasoline or low-sulfur gasoline, reducing emissions beyond EPA or state requirements is the equivalent of eliminating the NOx emissions from 100,000 cars every summer day. This calculation is based upon actual sales of BP premium fuels for the 12-month period before BP introduced its low-sulfur gasolines.
BP's new and improved fuel products that help reduce air pollutants are now available in more than 40 U.S. “Clean Cities,” including: Arlington, Asheville, Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Cedar Rapids, Charlotte, Chesapeake, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Flint, Gary, Green Bay, Greensboro, Indianapolis, Lansing, Madison, Memphis, Milwaukee, Nashville, Norfolk, Omaha, Orlando, Peoria, Philadelphia, Portland, Quad Cities, Raleigh/Durham, Richmond, Rockford, Seattle, Sioux Falls, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Virginia Beach and Washington DC.
BP’s refineries also are working hard to reduce their own emissions. In 2004, BP's total emission of greenhouse gases around the world was 1.7 million tons lower than in 2003, due to a number of factors, including emission reduction programs at refineries. In the U.S., 2004's significant reductions in greenhouse gases included 250,000 tons from energy efficiency measures at just two refineries, Whiting and Texas City.
Operating capacity
Still another concern involving U.S. refineries is the fact that they are generally operating at or near capacity while demand for energy continues increasing. The nation now is importing almost two-thirds of the crude oil and petroleum products it consumes.
Even giant investments at existing refineries such as the $130 million Whiting project will not solve this problem. There has been no new oil refinery built in the United States since 1976.
Growing demand
The federal government’s Energy Information Agency forecasts that demand for petroleum products will continue outstripping domestic refinery production over the next decade, further increasing reliance on imports.
BP is continuously weighing ways to operate its refineries more efficiently, with fewer environmental impacts, and safely.
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