Indiana
With more than 130 years of operations, bp’s Whiting refinery team is looking to the future by making strides to improve the facility’s efficiency and help reduce its emissions
Fast facts
- bp’s Whiting refinery can produce enough gasoline each day to support the average daily travel of more than 7 million cars.1
- Along with a range of liquid fuels, the refinery produces about 7% of all asphalt in the United States.
- The Whiting refinery can process around 440,000 barrels of crude oil every day.
- bp’s Indiana footprint includes the Whiting refinery, three wind farms and fuel terminals.
Located in northwest Indiana, our Whiting refinery is the largest in the Midwest and bp’s largest anywhere in the world. Able to process around 440,000 barrels of crude oil every day, Whiting produces a wide range of liquid fuels, along with 7% of all asphalt in the United States.
Whiting refinery reached an important milestone by safely bringing its new naphtha hydrotreater processing unit online in August 2020. bp invested more than $300 million over the three-year construction period of the unit. The naphtha hydrotreater removes sulfur from gasoline and improves the facility’s ability to produce cleaner-burning fuels.
In addition, the refinery has developed and implemented new performance indicators for optimizing and minimizing daily energy use. Among these efficiency initiatives, the facility installed equipment to generate steam from exhaust gas. This reduces the amount of steam generated from its boilers, which in turn reduces the amount of fuel burned and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
The Whiting team is using innovative technologies to protect the environment, boost efficiency and improve safety.
- Gas cloud imaging cameras have the capability to continuously monitor facilities and identify methane leaks earlier than during routine inspections.
- The refinery deploys drones to inspect flares, rather than have workers climb up temporary scaffolding. The team also uses robots to clean sulfur tanks.
Located on the Lake Michigan shoreline in northwest Indiana, not only is Whiting the largest refinery in the Midwest — it also makes enormous contributions to the region’s transportation network. Every day the refinery produces around 10 million gallons of gasoline, 4 million gallons of diesel and 2 million gallons of jet fuel.
Since opening its gates in 1889 as part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, Whiting has been a key anchor of the northwest Indiana economy, as well as the surrounding community. The Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce recognized the refinery in 2019 for its “outstanding contributions to economic growth and betterment of northwest Indiana.”
Over the years, Whiting and its employees have supported a diverse range of local and regional institutions, focusing on STEM education as well as community outreach efforts, such as Pierogifest and the East Chicago Maker Space. As one of the founders of the Process Tech program offered through Ivy Tech Community College, bp offers financial support and employees advise students exploring STEM careers.
bp operates all three Fowler Ridge wind farms, which collectively have 355 turbines generating enough powerto support about 195,000 Indiana homes.
* Vendor spend and number of contracted vendors as of 2022. bp employee figures as of June 30, 2023. Community spend includes bp foundation. Tax paid figures for the year ended December 31, 2022.
1 Calculation based on the average amount of gasoline an American passenger car uses each day.
