BP completes upgrade of Whiting facility in US

18th Dec 2013 16:22

Oil major BP announced on Wednesday afternoon that it has completed the upgrade of the Whiting facility in Northwest Indiana, designed to create one billion dollars per annum of additional future operating cash flow for the group.Whiting is BP's largest US refinery, processing 413,000 barrels per day (bpd) and providing the Midwest and other parts of America with fuel.The firm said that all of the major new units have been successful brought on stream with the start-up of the new 102,000 barrel-per-day coker in mid-November marking the last major milestone of the multi-year, multi-billion dollar modernisation project.A coker is a refinery processing unit that converts residual oil from the crude distillation process for use."The safe start-up of this world-scale coker is the last major step in unlocking the full potential of the Whiting Refinery for our shareholders," said Iain Conn, Chief Executive of BP's downstream segment. White is currently undergoing so-called troubleshooting activities and is expected to be ready to begin the ramp-up of processing in the first quarter of 2014."The Whiting Refinery project has been at the heart of our US fuels strategy to operate sophisticated, feedstock-advantaged refineries tied to strong logistics and integrated into fuels marketing," Conn added.BC