BP Concerned About Environment

Oil and gas giant BP plans to invest more than $130 million on new clean diesel facilities at its Whiting, Indiana refinery, the company said.

With the addition of a new Distillate Hydrotreater, the refinery will produce additional supplies of ultra low sulfur diesel fuel that meets or exceeds all on-road diesel regulations. The new unit will have the capacity to produce approximately 36,000 barrels per day of the ultra low sulfur diesel product.

?BP remains committed to leading the industry in the production of cleaner fuels and remaining the leader in making our products safer for the environment,? said Dan Sajkowski, BP Whiting Refinery Business Unit Leader. ?We are pleased to be able to make this investment, which will increase the quantity of cleaner diesel product available in the Midwest .?

?BP?s low sulfur fuels are cleaner burning fuels,? said Brad Johnson, BP clean fuels project manager based at the Whiting refinery. ?The lower sulfur enables new diesel engine technology to reduce fine particulate emissions along with sulfur emissions. These new diesel engines can only work with the ultra low sulfur diesel fuel. Ultra low sulfur diesel will also help existing engines reduce undesirable emissions,?

Locally, the project will employ approximately 400 skilled workers during the peak construction period. BP has already begun preliminary work on the project and expects to complete construction in mid-2006.

BP is the largest oil and gas producer and one of the largest gasoline retailers in the U.S. and has more than $40 billion in fixed assets with operations in almost every state and over 43,000 employees. In 2003, BP invested more than $7 billion in its U.S. businesses