WHITING, Ind. — BP PLC's $3.8 billion expansion of its northwestern Indiana oil refinery is two-thirds complete two years before the project is scheduled to begin processing heavy Canadian crude, company officials said.
BP spokesman Thomas Keilman said Tuesday the expansion along Lake Michigan was 65 percent complete and that company officials expect it will be ready for its startup in mid-2013.
Keilman said about 5,000 people from outside contracting firms are working during a peak construction period to push the refinery's modernization project closer to completion. The Times of Munster reports that he made the comments during a progress report for the Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce.
The upgrade of the refinery about 20 miles southeast of Chicago will equip it to become a top processor of high-sulfur crude taken from Canadian tar sands. The project is designed to deal with the higher level of impurities found in that crude.
The modernization effort started in May 2008 in the wake of an uproar of a state wastewater permit the company obtained from Indiana environmental regulators.
In June 2007, state officials issued BP that permit, angering environmentalists because it allows the refinery to increase discharges into Lake Michigan of ammonia and pollution called suspended solids.
BP later announced that it would find ways to keep the expanded refinery's discharges to the limits set under its previous water permit.
In February, BP officials announced that the startup of expanded refinery was being pushed back from late 2012 to mid-2013 due to the project's "many variables."
Between 2,500 and 3,000 of the contractors on the site are members of the Northwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, said Randy Palmateer, the council's business manager.
"It's good for us because the economy hasn't [returned] as we hoped, but our customers in the industrial sector are keeping us afloat," Palmateer said. "We're thankful for the refinery, the steel mills and NIPSCO."
Keilman said the refinery's new crude distillation unit is expected to be operational in August 2012 and a new petroleum coker should be up and running in 2013.
The reconfigured distillation unit is better equipped to process crude oils with more impurities such as sulfur.
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