BT Whiting Refinery Modernisation, Indiana, USA

The BP refinery at Whiting, northwest Indiana, US, is the subject of a modernisation program that will invest more than $3.8bn into the facility. This will include $1.4bn in environmental improvements.

The project will increase the useful life of the refinery, extending the scope of its processing capabilities to heavier crudes from Canada, a more secure source of crude, and improving the supply of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel to the Midwest, increasing production by some 15%. The plan was first put forward in 2005-2006 and the construction air permitting was received in May 2008 from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (there has been some controversy over the permit, which is currently being considered).

Refinery

The Whiting Refinery is located adjacent to Lake Michigan, and Chicago is on the opposite shore. This is an ideal position to satisfy the logistics of fuel supply.

The refinery used to be run by Amoco but was acquired by BP in 1998. It is the largest refinery in the mid-west region, the biggest inland refinery in the US, and the third-largest refinery in the country, processing approximately 410,000 b/d of crude oil into gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, propane, and 10% of the asphalt used in the US.

The refinery processing units include: alkylation, catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, desulphurisation, hydrogen, isomerisation, thermal cracking/delayed coking, and vacuum distillation.

Source of feedstock

The Whiting refinery receives crude from three equal sources: heavy crude from Canada; sweet and sour crude from south-west US domestic sources; and mixed grades of foreign and domestic offshore oil. By completing the modernisation/expansion project BP aims to increase the use of the Canadian crude from Oil Sands via the Enbridge pipeline, which runs from Alberta to Illinois from the current 30% to around 80-90%.

This requires the refinery to change its processing units to handle the additional volume of heavy Canadian crude. The project will increase the refinery capacity to process Canadian heavy crude by 260,000 b/d and increase the gasoline and diesel production by 4.7bn gallons per year or 15% of the present annual output.

The expansion will include the licensing, design and fabrication of sulphur recovery technology and the revamping of several hydrotreaters. Work begins in June 2008 and the project is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2011.

The project will also include a $150m investment into upgrading waste water treatment facilities for discharge into Lake Michigan.

Contractors

Foster Wheeler USA Corp has been involved in projects in the Whiting refinery since about 2005. However in August 2008 Foster Wheeler was awarded a contract for engineering, procurement and fabrication of a 102,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) six-drum delayed coking unit and associated gas plant facilities for the refinery, which will increase gasoline production by 1.7m gallons a day.

Other projects that Foster Wheeler is involved in at the refinery include the thermal design, engineering, procurement and material supply of three delayed coker heaters. Troy Roder, chief executive officer of Foster Wheeler USA Corporation, commented: "We have developed an excellent working relationship with BP at the Whiting refinery in the past three years, during which time we have designed the coking facility and developed a modular fabrication strategy for the coker in line with BP’s objectives for this project. The final release to proceed confirms BP’s continued confidence in the quality of our team, in-depth technical expertise, project execution track record and module fabrication experience."

The project will use the SYDEC process, which is a thermal conversion procedure to upgrade heavy residue feed and process it into high-value transport fuels minimising fuel coke yields. Fluor Corporation will also take a big part in the modernisation project, being responsible for the programme, construction management, engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction of multiple projects including a new gas oil hydro treater, major upgrades to a crude/vacuum unit, and the upgrade and modernisation of utilities and off-sites.

FEED was completed by Fluor in July 2008 and detailed design was started. The $500m sulphur recovery complex expansion contract has been awarded to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc, as has a $30m desulphurisation unit upgrade.

In October 2008 about 400 skilled workers are working on the project but this will increase to 1,000 workers in early 2009 and reach a peak of about 2,500 by 2010.