Oil and petrochemicals company BP announced in July that it had completed commissioning and start-up of its new 250 000 bl/d crude distillation unit at the Whiting refinery, marking a major milestone in the multibillion-dollar upgrade of the facility in Northwest Indiana, in the US.

“The safe start-up of this large, sophisticated crude processing unit at Whiting has returned the refinery to its nameplate processing capability of 413 000 bbl/d – initially of mostly light, sweet crude –and paved the way for the remaining upgrades to the plant to be brought on line,” says BP refining and marketing CE Iain Conn.

He adds that, 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 a year, depending on market conditions.

Construction of the Whiting refinery upgrade project is more than 95% complete, it was reported in July. BP expects to commission a new 105 000 bl/dgas oil hydrotreater, a large 102 000 bl/d coker and other associated units in the second half of 2013.

When all of the new equipment is in full operation, the refinery will have the ability to significantly increase heavy, sour crude processing to roughly 80% of its overall crude run.

“The Whiting refinery project is at the heart of our US fuels strategy to operate sophisticated, feedstock-advantaged refineries tied to strong logistics and fuel markets,” Conn says, adding that the 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.

The multibillion-dollar investment in the refinery is the largest private-sector investment in Indiana history and also includes several hundred million dollars in environmental controls for water treatment and air emissions, notes Whiting refinery manager Nick Spencer.

“The investment in Whiting’s future shows BP’s commitment to create jobs in America and safely provide energy,” Spencer says.

also gives credit to the 1 900 Whiting employees and large contractor workforce for safely reaching the important milestones in the project.

“We have employed more than 10 000 skilled craftspeople here at Whiting in the past few years preparing for this important moment. “We have focused on safe execution and, earlier this year, logged more than 40-million work hours without an injury resulting in employees missing a day of work.

“Our focus now is to continue this standard of safety performance through to the completion of the project later this year and for years to come,” he explains.

As BP’s largest US refinery, the Whiting facility provides the Midwest and other parts of the country with enough fuel every day to run 430 000 cars, 22 000 commercial trucks, 2 000 commercial jet liners and 10 000 tractors, and to fill 350 000 propane tanks.

BP recently completed a number of major investments in its other US refineries, including a clean-diesel upgrading project at its 234 000 bl/d Cherry Point refinery, in Washington, and the addition of a continuous cata- lytic reformer to its 160 000 bl/d refinery in Toledo, Ohio.

With more than $55-billion in capital spending between 2008 and 2012, BP invests more in the US than in any other country. The company is the nation’s second-largest producer of oil and gas, a major oil refiner and a leader in alternative energy sources.

With 20 000 US employees, BP supports nearly 250 000 domestic jobs through its business activities.