BP announced today that it intends to include two European oil refineries in its new olefins and derivatives (O&D) petrochemicals entity. O&D is due to be sold, possibly through an initial public offering (IPO), in the second half of 2005, subject to market conditions and necessary approvals. There will be no compulsory redundancies associated with the decision to include the two refineries in the O&D company.

The refineries at Grangemouth, Scotland, and Lavéra, southern France, are closely integrated with their neighbouring chemicals plants which take refinery products as feedstock and together they form competitively advantaged manufacturing sites.

Grangemouth and Lavéra refineries have combined crude oil capacity of 21 million tonnes per year (425,000 barrels per day) and chemical feedstock output of 2.2 million tonnes per year. As integrated refining and petrochemicals sites, they will have single site-wide management and will provide the new O&D company with secure and competitive feedstock and product optimisation flexibility.

“These two complexes are highly efficient manufacturing sites and are already integrated with their neighbouring petrochemicals plant. This gives us access to and security of feedstock supply and integration benefits for two major assets in the new company,” said Ralph Alexander, CEO of the proposed olefins and derivatives (O&D) entity.

The integrated sites together employ around 2500 BP staff plus varying numbers of contractor staff working on site in support.


The decision to include the refineries in the disposal will be subject to any necessary regulatory approvals.

Today’s announcement will not affect BP’s marketing businesses in Scotland and France which BP expects to continue to be supplied by the Grangemouth and Lavéra refineries respectively, nor will it affect its significant UK upstream and offshore activities. These include the Forties Pipeline System (FPS), the UK’s largest crude oil and gas liquids pipeline, which ends at the Kinneil processing plant alongside the Grangemouth complex.