Business

Congressman Mark Sanford Visits BP’s Cooper River Plant

by Nikki Gaskins Campbell
From left to right, the employees are Doug Lerczak, Chair of BP’s Veterans Network, and Sean Scheffer and Marianne Andrews.
From left to right, the employees are Doug Lerczak, Chair of BP’s Veterans Network, and Sean Scheffer and Marianne Andrews.

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C.–Congressman Mark Sanford visited BP’s Cooper River plant on Monday, meeting with employees and touring the facility as it undergoes a $170 million infrastructure improvement project that will cut energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In November, BP announced that it plans to invest over $200 million to upgrade its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plants at Cooper River, South Carolina and Geel, Belgium. The investments will position these assets amongst the most efficient PTA manufacturing facilities in the world, officials stated.

“This allows us to apply our latest proprietary technology and process know-how to existing assets, significantly improving their cost competitiveness and reducing their environmental footprint,” said Luis Sierra, President BP Aromatics – Americas, Europe and Middle East. “It enables Cooper River and Geel to remain the leading PTA manufacturing complexes in the Americas and Europe respectively.”

By applying the latest PTA technology to these world-scale production facilities, BP officials say they expect to greatly improve feedstock and energy efficiency which will reduce both variable and fixed cost and greenhouse gas emissions.

PTA is the raw material used to make polyester which is found in a wide range of consumer goods ranging from fabrics to food and beverage containers. The BP Cooper River site is the largest PTA producer in the Americas and BP Geel is the largest in Europe.

Cooper River’s PTA1 unit, one of two units at the facility, is expected to be upgraded by mid 2016. The project expects to create around 200 construction jobs at its peak and indirectly support many more jobs in the region. When the project is completed, the reduction in annual greenhouse gas reductions should equate to eliminating the electricity and heating emissions of about 2,000 typical U.S. households.

BP Cooper River, one of the world’s largest producers of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), provides high-quality jobs to more than 250 employees and approximately 150 contract employees and provides more than $100 million a year into the local economy through payroll and third-party expenditures.
Nikki Gaskins Campbell
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