Illinois
Fast facts
- bp’s retail presence includes over 740 bp-, Amoco-, and Thorntons branded sites in the state.
- Chicago is the headquarters for control centers in Oklahoma and Washington that manage more than 4,200 miles of pipelines within the US. These pipelines play an important role in the US’ transportation infrastructure.
- Since 2012, bp has contributed more than $11 million in research at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign including student-led technology projects.
- bp spent $17 million with women, minority, LBGTQ+, and veteran owned businesses in 2020 in Illinois.
bp has a rich, proud history in Chicago dating back more than a century. Over the years, its investments have made the company part of the city’s cultural fabric.
bp’s downtown offices serve as a major hub for its trading and shipping business (T&S) — one of the world’s leading energy trading houses — and bp’s largest team in the state of Illinois. bp’s marketers & traders work with counterparts to buy, sell and move energy, integrating our products and services to provide energy solutions for more than 3,500 North American customers annually. These include retail energy providers, power generators, producers, municipalities, private equity firms, renewable energy developers and natural gas consumers.
The trading and shipping team is critical to bp’s net zero future. By 2050, we see T&S’s portfolio of traded and marketed products helping to decarbonize the global energy mix. Beyond bp’s investments in renewable energy, T&S has been developing several other offerings to help customers meettheir sustainability needs. For example, bp has a robust carbon offset portfolio in North America.
Chicago also is home to the US headquarters of Air bp, one of the world’s leading suppliers of aviation fuel products and services. Active in more than 50 countries, Air bp serves customers from commercial carriers and private aircraft owners to the US military.
About 17 miles southeast of downtown Chicago, in northwest Indiana, bp’s Whiting refinery produces around 10 million gallons of gasoline, 4 million gallons of diesel and 2 million gallons of jet fuel each day, along with roughly 7% of all asphalt in the United States.
Whiting is the largest refinery in the Midwest — and bp’s largest refinery in the world — making enormous contributions to the region’s transportation network.
bp has donated more than $6.5 million since 2017 to a wide range of institutions and initiatives that help strengthen Chicago communities.
Specifically, in STEM education initiatives, bp is working with community and educational partners like the National Energy Education Development Project’s Energizing Student Potential program, Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy and the Museum of Science and Industry to help close the STEM skills gap.
bp’s partnership with the Chicago Urban League, home to the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the bp Innovation Lab, develops Chicago’s next generation of African American entrepreneurs and business owners.
bp is also building the capacity of local, diverse suppliers through bp’s Diversity Growth Initiative and supporting Chicago United’s Five Forward program which is working to grow and scale the number of minority business enterprises.
Since 2015, bp has contributed more than $2.25 million to the Student Conservation Association for programs that have improved conditions at the Calumet Watershed and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, enabled local youths to gain valuable skills and experience, and empowered womenin conservation. Our partnership has helped plant and maintain over 4,000 trees in the region.