EPA Backs Opponents of BP’s Whiting Refinery Expansion Plan
By Tina Seeley and Paul Burkhardt
Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has granted part of a petition by environmental groups objecting to BP Plc’s expansion of its Whiting refinery in Indiana.
The EPA said in a statement today that Indiana regulators must re-evaluate the emissions calculations for BP’s plan to expand the facility to refine high-sulfur Canadian crude oil.
The agency said it agreed with groups that said the company didn’t take into account all emissions from the facility, which would become the largest refiner of oil sands in the U.S. Opponents of the project include the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law & Policy Center.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management “did not adequately respond to public comment,” and information on some of BP’s emissions may have been omitted, the EPA said.
The agency’s action was unexpected, said a spokesman for BP, Europe’s second-largest oil company after Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
“We’re a bit surprised by EPA’s objection, considering that they reviewed and approved the permit previously,” Scott Dean of BP said in a telephone interview today.
BP said last year it plans to complete a more than $2.5 billion expansion of its Whiting refinery in 2011. The plant has the capacity to process 405,000 barrels of oil a day, according to Bloomberg data.
“We have about 2,000 people working on the expansion and modernization and we plan to continue with construction which is about a third of the way through,” Dean said.
“EPA recognizes what we’ve been telling BP and the state all along -- this refinery expansion is clearly going to dump additional pollution on the surrounding communities, and the law requires BP to control it,” Ann Alexander, senior attorney for the NRDC, said in an e-mailed statement. “BP has been playing games with the numbers to try to duck that responsibility, but the jig is up.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=at1YDXk4vKsg
