User:Arturo at BP/US operations

BP America
BP's operations in the United States comprise nearly one third of its worldwide business interests, with more investment and employees than any other nation. The company employs approximately 23,000 people in the US, where it has invested over $52 billion in energy development since 2007. In the US, BP is the second-largest producer of oil and gas. The company's US operations include assets acquired from its merger with Amoco in 1998, including two of its refineries, and its merger with ARCO in 2000.

In the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, BP is the largest producer of oil and gas. The company operates four out of the seven largest drilling platforms in the region. BP has oil and gas production in the Gulf from fields including Atlantis, Marlin, Horn Mountain, Holstein, Mad Dog, Na Kika, and Thunder Horse. The company also holds stakes in fields operated by other companies, including the Mars, Ursa, Diana Hoover and Ram Powell fields. The Horn Mountain, Marlin and Holstein fields and BP's stakes in Diana Hoover and Ram Powell were put up for sale in 2012. The company produces over 200,000 barrels of oil and gas equivalent per day in the region. In December 2011, BP acquired 11 newly available leases for resource exploration rights to areas of federal waters in the Gulf and in June 2012 was the high bidder on 43 further leases in the central region of the Gulf. The company is the largest leaseholder in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

BP has operated in Alaska since 1959, and in 2012 operates 13 oil fields and four pipelines in the North Slope. The company also owns a "significant" share in six additional fields and is the largest owner of the 800-mile long [Trans-Alaska Pipeline System]]. BP operates about two-thirds of all North Slope production.

In the lower 48 states, BP has a presence in seven of the top gas basins and in 2011 produced more than 1,800 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas. The company is the country's sixth largest natural gas producer with a total of 10,000 wells. Its North America Gas division has shale positions in the Woodford, Oklahoma, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Haynesville, Texas and Eagle Ford, Texas shales. In March 2012, BP announced that it had acquired a lease for gas exploration of the Utica Shale in Ohio. In Colorado, BP operates approximately 1,500 oil and gas wells, primarily in the San Juan basin. The majority of these wells are "unconventional", using methods other than conventional oil wells to produce oil or gas. The company also has gas extraction operations in "unconventional" gas fields in the New Mexico section of the San Juan basin, and in Moxa and Wamsutter, Wyoming.

In the US, BP operates five refineries in Whiting, Indiana; Toledo, Ohio; Cherry Point, Washington; Carson, California; and Texas City, Texas. The company's Whiting refinery is the sixth largest in the US and can refine more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day. , BP is making a multi-billion investment to modernize the refinery in order to allow it to process heavier crude oil. The Toledo refinery in northwestern Ohio, in which BP has invested around $500 million on improvements since 2010, is a joint venture with Husky Energy, which operates the refinery, and processes approximately 160,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The Cherry Point and Carson refineries on the West Coast process the company's crude oil from Alaska and other countries. The Cherry Point refinery produces gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and some propane and butane. It supplies 20 percent of the gasoline in Washington state, and also supplies gasoline to Oregon and California. The refinery also produces 8 percent of the world's calcined coke and is the largest supplier of calcined coke to the global aluminum industry. The Texas City refinery processes more than 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Since the early 2000s, the company has been focusing its refining business on processing crude from oil sands and shale oil. In August 2012, BP announced it had reached an agreement to sell its Carson refinery and related assets. The company also plans to sell its Texas City refinery in 2012.

The company also owns three petrochemical plants in the US, which produce approximately four million tons of petrochemicals each year. Its plant in Texas City, located on the same site as its refinery, produces chemicals including propylene and styrene, which are used in the manufacture of products including windows, carpet and paint. BP's Decatur, Alabama and Cooper River, South Carolina petrochemical plants both produce purified terephthalic acid, more commonly known as PTA, which is used in the production of synthetic fiber for clothing, packaging and optical films. The Decatur plant also produces paraxylene and naphthalene dicarboxlate.

The company's alternative energy operations based in the US include 13 wind farms in seven states, with a further three under construction. The farms are located in Colorado, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas. Since 2005, BP has constructed an average of three turbines each week. The total gross capacity of the 13 wind farms is 1,955 megawatts. In addition, BP is growing dedicated energy grass feedstock on a 20,000-acre farm through its subsidiary Highlands in Highlands County, Florida, where the company is planning to locate its first commercial plant to produce cellulosic ethanol from perennial grasses. BP has established a "Global Biofuels Technology Center" in San Diego to develop cellulosic technology and this technology is being tested at scalable levels at a biofuels demonstration plant, located in Jennings, Louisiana.

There are over 11,000 retail sites in the US operating under a BP brand including BP, ARCO and ampm. On the US West Coast, BP primarily operates service stations under the ARCO brand, having acquired the company in 2000. The ARCO service stations sell BP-refined gasolines and biofuels.