BP (British Petroleum) Refining Strategy in Europe Essay

BP (British Petroleum) Refining Strategy in Europe - Essay Example Many companies that deal in oil refinery use different processes and strategies in order to produce high quality products that can be used in different factory processes and automobiles. In the process of refining (Krippendorff 2013, 82), an oil depot or tank farm has to be located near the oil refinery plant so that storage of the incoming crude stocks can be persevered before being refined as well as the products arising from the refinery process. BP utilises one of the most efficient technology in the refinery field known as Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology (Singh & Harvey 2010; Hicks &Nelder 2008, 45). According to BP (2013), the technology is crucial in helping the company to convert various feedstocks such as crude residues, heavy crude residues, coal and biomass into clean and quality fuels such as jet fuel, diesel and naphtha. Fischer-Tropsch technology makes refining process efficient and reliable while ensuring production of superior products that passes all performance-related tests used in respective industries (Maitlis & Klerk 2013; Klerk 2011, 17). According to BP (2013), the company is committed to minimising its contribution to greenhouse gases that emanate from its refinery processes. By adopting Fischer-Tropsch technology, the company has greatly minimised pollution arising from poor refining processes (Johansson 1993, 27; Maczulak 2010, 36). The Fischer-Tropsch technology has often been used with much success at BP Refinery in many of the countries that it has been used. The strategy involves various processes like the multi tubular fixed bed reactor. This reactor has various types of tubes that have small diameters with special catalysts surrounded by boiling water that removes the heat of the reaction (Great Britain 2010, 29). This reactor is very suitable when operating at low temperatures with upper limits reaching up to 530 K. The excess temperature arising from the system results in carbon deposition and can block