New 250,000 barrel per day distillation unit online at Whiting Refinery; expanding BP’s heavy crude capacity
24 August 2013
BP recently commissioned a new 250,000 barrel-per-day crude distillation unit at its Whiting Refinery, marking a major milestone in the multi-billion dollar Whiting Refinery Modernization Project (WRMP). (Earlier post.) The unit will help the refinery significantly increase its heavy, sour crude processing capability to around 80% of its overall crude run.
The start-up of the distillation unit paves the way for the remaining upgrades to the plant, 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.
—Iain Conn
Construction of the Whiting Refinery upgrade project is more than 95% complete. BP expects to commission a new 105,000 barrel-per-day gasoil hydrotreater, a large 102,000 barrel-per-day coker and other associated units in the second half of 2013.
The Whiting Refinery project is at the heart of our US fuels strategy to operate sophisticated, feedstock-advantaged refineries tied to strong logistics and fuels markets. This world class refinery is in the right location and will soon be running the right equipment to process growing supplies of North American crude oil, including oil from Canada.
—Iain Conn
Whiting is BP’s largest US refinery.
I guess they need many tons of H2 per day for hydrotreatment.
Any excess (renewable) electricity of the near future could be consumed by them (and other refineries/fertiliser plants), even if not a single hydrogen car exists.
Posted by: Alain | 26 August 2013 at 12:00 AM