Texas Green Blotter

In the last installment of Major Source Sunday, we began looking the Texas City Industrial Complex with a profile of Union Carbide’s Texas City plant. We continue with the second Major Source Sunday by heading east along 5th Avenue, to the BP Texas City Refinery, which is at 2401 5th Avenue.

The refinery was originally owned by Amoco (The Standard Oil Company of Indiana) before BP, plc and Amoco merged in 1999. According to BP and Wikipedia, the Texas City BP refinery is BP’s largest refinery, the third largest in the United States, and the second largest in the state of Texas. BP reports the refinery currently has a capacity of 460,000 barrels per day, and produces about 2.5 percent of the gasoline consumed in the United States.

The BP site also notes that:

About 80 percent of the refinery’s fuels is shipped out of Texas City via pipeline. Another 20 percent is delivered to markets around the country via marine transport.

Texas City also can produce about 100,000 barrels a day of diesel fuel destined for customers in the Southeast, East Coast and the Midwest, with some 40,000 barrels of jet fuel shipped daily from the refinery.

The refinery also produces the industrial chemicals paraxylene and metaxylene, both of which are used to produce plastics.

As for the refinery’s economic impact, BP’s Web site states:

The Texas City refinery employs about 1,800 full and part-time workers. Annual payroll for direct employees exceeds $120 million. The facility also uses many contract employees, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 per day during peak turnaround maintenance periods.

For 2005, BP will pay more than $38 million in property taxes – a $10 million increase over 2004 rates. The site and its people are an integral part and active members of the local communities and county in which they operate and work.

 

TCEQ’s current compliance history rating for BP’s Texas City refinery is 9.65, or “average.“  Although, as with many large refineries, BP Texas City often has upsets, including one with its ultracracker unit last week.

The refinery is the largest point source, by far, of VOCs and NOx in Galveston County, according to the 2005 STARS inventory, which reports annual emissions of:

• 404.498 tons per year of PM10 (333.772 tpy of PM2.5);
• 3122.1796 tpy of VOCs;
• 1961.0443 tpy of NOx;
• 4099.907 tpy of SO2; and
• 921.0643 tpy of CO.

The EPA’s 2005 Toxic Release Inventory for the site reports considerable emissions of dozens of toxic pollutants, including over 823,000 pounds of ammonia, 266,000 pounds of n-hexane, 220,000 pounds of sulfuric acid, and 137,000 pounds of benzene.

The plant has been called the nation’s worst polluter in recent years. BP paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for pollution at the plant last year.

BP Texas City made headlines on March 23, 2005 when an explosion at the refinery killed 15 people, and injured hundreds more. The explosion’s causes were documented in the company’s own report, the report of the Baker Panel, and by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.  According to the Boston Globe, more than 4,000 lawsuits were filed against BP as a result of the explosion, about half of which have been settled. Only one has proceded to trial so far; it settled before a verdict could be returned. Total liability could ultimately be close to $1 billion. BP was also fined $21.3 million by OSHA, according to CNN.

BP’s Web site notes the company is taking steps to improving safety at the site. Moreover, 2005 toxics emissions are down; although this is partly a result of reduced production after the March 23, 2005 explosion.