BP America unit settles federal air charges at Texas City refinery

Feb. 27, 2009
BP Products North America Inc. agreed to pay nearly $180 million to settle federal air pollution charges at its Texas City refinery, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency announced.

BP Products North America Inc. agreed to pay nearly $180 million to settle federal air pollution charges at its Texas City, Tex., refinery, the US Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency jointly announced on Feb. 19.

They said that the company will spend more than $161 million on pollution controls, enhanced maintenance and monitoring, and improved internal management practices to resolve Clean Air Act violations at the refinery. The installation is the BP America Inc. division's largest oil processing plant, with approximately 460,000 bbl of daily capacity.

BP Products North America also agreed to pay a $12 million fine and spend $6 million on a supplemental project to reduce air pollution in Texas City, the two federal agencies said. The proposed settlement was filed in US District Court for the Northern District of India and is subject to a 30-day comment period and final court approval, they noted.

They said that the settlement resolves allegations that the company did not comply with a 2001 consent decree and Clean Air Act regulations requiring strict controls on benzene and benzene-containing wastes generated during refining operations at the plant.

Under the agreement, BP Products North America will be required to upgrade control equipment and processes used to handle these materials and conduct in-depth audits to ensure compliance and minimize generation of benzene-containing wastes at the refinery. DOJ and EPA said that these actions will reduce emissions of benzene and other volatile organic compounds by an estimated approximately 6,000 pounds annually.

Post-blast inspections

They said that EPA identified the violations which the settlement addressed during a series of inspections of the Texas City refinery after a catastrophic explosion and fire in March 2005 killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others.

BP Products North America pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act in October 2007 and agreed to pay a $50 million fine for violations related to the explosion, the largest criminal fine ever assessed against a corporation for Clean Air Act violations. The US District Court for the Southern District of Texas is still reviewing that plea, and the latest settlement does not address any claims arising from the March 2005 blast and fire, DOJ and EPA said.

They said that specifically, the BP America refining and marketing division will be required to follow CAA requirements limiting emissions of stratospheric ozone-depleting hydro-chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) from leaking cooling appliances. It will eliminate approximately 51,000 pounds of HCFCs by retrofitting industrial and commercial cooling appliances at Texas City to use non-ozone-depleting refrigerants.

The company also has agreed to improve its oversight and management of asbestos-containing wastes generated during routine renovation and demolition activities at the Texas City refinery, according to DOJ and EPA.

They said that the company also agreed to spend another $6 million to reduce air pollution from diesel vehicle emissions in Texas City and the surrounding area as part of the tentative settlement. BP will convert approximately 100 diesel municipal vehicles, including several dozen school buses, to operate on compressed or liquefied natural gas and will construct four refueling stations for the converted vehicles, the two federal agencies said.

In a Feb. 19 statement, a BP America spokesman said that the company has invested well over $100 million since 1993 on benzene emissions controls for Texas City refinery wastewater streams. "At times over the past eight years, we have discussed, voluntarily reported and taken immediate action on instances when we fell short of regulatory standards. The consent decree announced by EPA/DOJ today acknowledges this but also builds upon our actions taken over the last several years to control benzene in waste streams," he said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected]