Oil giant BP has opened its new 250,000 barrels-per-day crude distillation unit at the Whiting Refinery in Indiana in a bid to generate $1billion of operating cash flow per year.
The overhaul will help the new facility, which is now 95% complete, generate $1billion a year and will be able to increase heavy, sour crude processing to roughly 80 percent of its overall crude run.
“The safe start-up of this large, sophisticated crude processing unit at the Whiting Refinery has returned the refinery to its nameplate processing capability of 413,000 barrels per day – initially of mostly light, sweet crude – and paved the way for the remaining upgrades to the plant to be brought on-line,” said Iain Conn, chief executive of BP’s refining and marketing segment.
“When the new coking and hydrotreating units are commissioned and operating at full rates in the second half of this year, the reconfigured refinery will have the flexibility to greatly increase heavy, sour crude processing, delivering an expected incremental $1 billion of operating cash flow per year, depending on market conditions.”
The multinational said it expects to commission a new 105,000 barrel-per-day gasoil hydrotreater, a large 102,000 barrel-per-day coker and other associated units at Whiting during the second half of the year.
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