BP Whiting Refinery Fact Sheet: Water Treatment Update

BP is investing more than $3.8 billion at the Whiting Refinery, enhancing energy security and fuels reliability, and increasing capability to provide motor fuels, while reducing overall environmental emissions.  The refinery modernization project will provide the Midwest United States with long term crude oil supply from Canada and has potential to increase the refinery's capacity to produce transportation fuels - gasoline and diesel - by about 15 percent. That's approximately 1.7 million gallons of gasoline a day.

As part of the modernization project, BP has been in the process of securing updated air and water emissions permits.  BP has already received a new water permit and has committed to operate the refinery to meet the lower water emission limits for total suspended solids and ammonia contained in the refinery's previous permit.

BP is committed to energy efficiency and emissions reduction activities across our operations. In fact, one third of the modernization budget will go to environmental improvements.  The company will continue to seek solutions that further reduce emissions as planning for the modernization moves forward.  

Here are specific actions the company is taking to meet its water emissions commitment:

• Operational review: BP is involving internal experts from refineries and other industrial operations across the globe. Additionally, the Whiting Refinery project engineering design team continues to fine tune technical data and designs for the refinery to shed more light on possibilities for improving water treatment. These internal efforts are moving forward simultaneously with a review of the various suggestions provided by external groups.
• Purdue and Argonne research: BP has committed $5 million to help fund a joint Purdue Calumet Water Institute (PWI) and Argonne National Laboratory project that will evaluate emerging technologies that may apply to BP's operations, as well as to others in the Great Lakes region.
• Review of currently available technology: An outside consulting company has been brought in to not only review the technology BP is using currently but also to reassess the technology that BP has already reviewed. The firm will also evaluate information and suggestions offered by external groups.
• Joint industry research: BP also is actively engaged in the Petroleum Environmental Research Forum (PERF), a joint industry cooperative effort to develop technologies to address environmental issues in the petroleum industry.

While it is important for BP to have a comprehensive appraisal of technologies, the company has put into place an aggressive review cycle. The company's goal is to find feasible short term solutions by early 2008 with longer term solutions continuously being reviewed and applied ahead of 2011, when the modernization project is scheduled to be completed.