The Renewable Diesel Project at BP’s Cherry Point refinery co-processes bio-feedstocks with petroleum feedstocks to produce a fuel blend of conventional diesel and renewable diesel. Renewable diesel reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional diesel and other fuels. Renewable diesel* also burns cleaner than conventional diesel. The carbon footprint of the refinery has been reduced and it is the only Pacific Northwest refinery capable of this production.
Surplus office furniture that covered 70,000 square feet of storage space in Houston was repurposed and recycled by the BP teams from Westlake Property Management and Global Business Solutions Procurement. Instead of disposing of the excess material in a landfill, the teams worked with a vendor to find new uses for the items. Furniture that could not be used again at other BP sites or sold, was recycled. About 700,000 pounds of wood and 300,000 pounds of metal were re-sold or recycled, creating a 1,400 tons of carbon offset. This project netted BP close to a $1 million in storage cost reductions and returns from re-sale.
In-service weld repairs of pipelines are challenging in the arctic climate. Weld toughness in frigid temperatures along with resistance to sour service cracking push the limits of existing welding technology. (Sour service means the levels of hydrogen sulfide in the production fluids are sufficient to cause cracking in welds if special care is not taken). BP Alaska’s mechanical engineers teamed up with the Upstream Engineering Center and a contractor to develop an in-service weld procedure for low temperature pipelines in sour service. The in-service weld repairs help keep pipelines on-line. Fewer shutdowns means less carbon is released into the atmosphere through flaring from blowing down of hydrocarbons from pipelines under repair.
The Petrochemicals Technology team worked with BP’s Cooper River chemical plant to recently upgrade the facility’s purified terephthalic acid (PTA) unit with BP’s latest generation proprietary technology. This step has cut the amount of electricity the plant buys from the grid by 40 percent and slashed carbon dioxide emissions by up to 110,000 tons per year, significantly reducing the plant’s carbon footprint while adding production capacity and increasing efficiency.