BP Whiting Refinery Fact Sheet: The Air Permit Application

In an effort to increase gasoline and diesel supply by a potential 1.7 million gallons per day to motorists in the Midwest, BP is investing more than $3.8 billion in the expansion of its Whiting Refinery in Northwest Indiana. Much of the Whiting modernization budget – more than $1.4 billion – is allocated for environmental improvements.

BP believes it is possible to meet growing U.S. demand for gasoline and diesel fuels, while having strong environmental protections in place.  The company’s latest demonstration of this is the air emissions permit application it recently submitted for regulatory review.

The air emissions permit application proposes:

• To hold regulated air emissions at the refinery to more stringent limits
• To establish individual limits on almost all air emissions sources and equipment, including sources that are not currently subject to emission limitations
• To account for all expected changes in emissions at the refinery from the modernization project and ongoing upgrades and maintenance through 2011

Reducing Air Emissions at the Whiting Refinery

Regulated air emissions at the facility decreased about 68 percent from 2001 to 2006. Through the modernization project, regulated air emissions are estimated to decrease at the refinery another seven percent from 8,952 tons of actual regulated emissions in 2006 to 8,332 tons per year when the Canadian heavy oil project is completed in 2011.

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Investing in the Future

To reduce air emissions, BP is replacing existing equipment with more modern technology, installing emission controls on upgraded and existing units and integrating some of the emissions reductions from the removal of older, less efficient equipment into the project.  As a result, the modernization project will achieve net decreases in emissions of major criteria pollutants while also producing more motor fuels.  Among these investments are:

• A $510 million investment in technologies that work to remove hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and sulfur produced throughout the refining process,  allowing for cleaner refining processes.
• The installation of a $624 million system that removes sulfur from gasoline, which leads to cleaner vehicle emissions.

Work to reduce emissions includes:

• Carbon monoxide emissions are being reduced through the investment in new fuel gas-fired heaters using best available control technology and by setting lower emissions limits for the fluid catalytic cracking units
• Volatile organic compound emissions are being reduced through investment in a vapor control system for the refinery’s gasoline loading dock and the institution of enhanced fugitive hydrocarbon leak detection and repair program
• Sulfur dioxide emissions are being reduced through the installation of new tail gas clean-up facilities at the sulfur recovery complex and additional sulfur removal from refinery fuel gas  
• Particulate emissions will be reduced by investing in high-efficiency cooling tower drift eliminators and enclosing the refiner’s coke-handling system
• Nitrogen oxide emissions will be lowered by investing in new heaters and retrofitting or replacing existing heaters to reduce nitrogen oxide created during combustion. Selective catalytic reduction equipment will be installed on the coker and hydrogen unit
• Mercury emissions are being minimized by permanently shutting down a hazardous waste incinerator at the refinery’s water treatment plant and switching to cleaner-burning fuel gas for heating furnaces and boilers

In order to meet the requirements for emissions reductions contained in the new permit, BP will apply credits earned from pollution reducing investments made at the refinery during the past few years.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management allow the use of credits to encourage early emissions reductions at plants.

To learn more about the Whiting modernization project, visit http://whiting.bp.com