BP, touting its leadership role as a responsible energy company,said last week it is completing plans to decrease its Houston areaNOx emissions through the construction of new cogenerationfacilities at its Texas City and Chocolate Bayou refining andchemical sites.

BP said it is finalizing negotiations with Ohio-based CinergySolutions to build new natural gas-fired cogeneration facilities,shutting down less efficient gas-fired units. BP Global Power, thepower development unit of BP Gas and Power, will be an investor inthe project’s development.

The replacement facilities will result in NOx emissionreductions of about 53% from the Texas City site and 34% from theChocolate Bayou site. This project is a key component in BP’sproactive approach to working with the Texas Natural ResourceConservation Commission (TNRCC) to meet their proposed 90% emissionreductions targets. In addition to substantial NOx reductions, thesites will also reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 727,000tons per year.

Combined, the existing assets and new facilities will produce805 MW of electricity and 3.5 million pounds per hour of steam.

The power generation units will be able to produce moreelectricity than required by the two sites enabling the excess tobe sold on to the open market to other energy users. CinergySolutions will construct and operate the units.

“Leadership in environmental progress is a cornerstone of the BPbrand,” said Tim Scruggs, vice president of the Texas City businessunit. “This is a further demonstration of our commitment toimproving air quality in Texas. It gives the public, TNRCC and ourcolleagues a clear idea of how we plan to reach the aggressiveemission targets set for industrial facilities in our area. We alsobelieve the project helps create business opportunities for us andfor others as well.”

Steve Harkness, the president of Cinergy Solutions, said, “Weare extremely pleased that we were selected to partner with anenvironmental leader like BP on these projects. Based on oursuccesses with our other industrial partners, we know thatenvironmental excellence can be achieved in balance with safety andeconomics.”

In September, BP announced its commitment to work with the TNRCCto achieve substantial NOx emission reductions from its industrialpoint sources in the Houston non-attainment area. BP is the onlyenergy company to support the State Implementation Plan (SIP)target reductions in an effort to bring Houston into compliancewith the standards set by the federal Clean Air Act Amendments of1990.

“While others are fighting the process and casting doubt, we arestating our support and commitment to reducing pollution and todoing what we think is part of the solution to air quality in andaround Houston, ” Scruggs added.

This commitment is fully in line with the BP’s position as thefirst energy company to commit to reduce its global greenhouse gasemissions, manifested in CO2 emissions, by 10% over its baseline1990 totals by the year 2010.

In addition to these initiatives, BP is working with the city ofHouston to provide ECD-200, an ultra low sulfur diesel which, whenused in conjunction with after treatment technologies, reduces NOx,sulfur and particulate emissions. The city is embarking this fallon a project to test fuels and treatment on a number ofdiesel-power vehicles and machines.

“All of these efforts, including our 30 part-per milliongasoline offerings in 40 cities worldwide demonstrate our intent tobe part of the nation’s environmental solutions, not problems,”Scruggs said.

The Texas City refinery is the largest in the BP system and oneof the largest in the U.S., processing 450,000 barrels of crude perday. The Texas City chemicals plant is a world-class producer ofmetaxylene, paraxylene, and styrene. The Chocolate Bayou Works is aleading producer of Olefins (primarily ethylene, propylene andbutadiene), and Polypropylene.

Ellen Beswick

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