Colorado
Along with its bpx energy headquarters in Denver, bp supports more than 1,800 jobs in Colorado
Fast facts
- In September 2018, bpx energy formally opened its new, 160,000-square-foot headquarters in Denver.
- bpx energy engages with community service in Colorado, including donating $380,000 toward STEM education in the state and assisting with programs that improve homelessness, education and the environment.
Headquartered in Denver, bpx energy — bp’s US onshore oil and gas business — manages one of America’s largest natural gas producers along with world-class assets that span Texas and Louisiana.
In 2018, bpx spent $10.5 billion to acquire BHP’s oil and gas assets in the Permian Basin of Texas and two premium positions in the Eagle Ford and Haynesville basins in Texas and Louisiana, respectively.
These assets, managed from Denver, currently produce roughly 325,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, of which about 45% are liquid hydrocarbons.
Lightsource bp, together with Xcel Energy and EVRAZ North America, celebrated the launch of its new 300-megawatt Bighorn Solar project in October 2021. The solar project will help reduce emissions, abating 433,770 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year, the equivalent of taking 92,100 fuel-burning cars off the road — and support more than 1,000 jobs at EVRAZ’s Pueblo steel mill, the world’s first steel mill to be powered largely by solar energy.
Steel powered by the sun
The project is primarily located on 1,800 acres of land on EVRAZ Rocky Mountain Steel property in Pueblo. It is the largest on-site solar facility in the US dedicated to a single customer, with more than 750,000 solar panels providing nearly all the plant’s annual electricity demand. This will enable the mill to produce some of the world’s greenest steel and steel products.
Already, the plant recycles scrap metal to produce new steel products, including some of the most sustainably made rail in the world.
Elsewhere in Colorado, bp Wind Energy is the operating partner of the Cedar Creek 2 wind farm in Weld County. The 30,000-acre site has 122 turbines with a total capacity to generate about 248 megawatts (MW) of wind power.
In October 2021, Lightsource bp and Xcel Energy announced a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the development of Sun Mountain Solar, a 293-megawatt solar project also in Pueblo. The project entered commercial operation in December 2022.
Along with donating over $1.6 million since 2018, at the local level, bpx energy supported both the Colorado COVID-19 Relief Fund and the Denver Public Schools Emerging Needs Fund.
