BP Puts Monster SoCal Refinery -- 25 Percent of All L.A. Gas -- Up for Sale

By Simone Wilson Thu., Feb. 3 2011 at 9:00 AM

terrapsych.com

BP Carson Refinery: officially on the market

It's easy to hate BP. Those jerks made the glistening Gulf of Mexico into a goopy seafood dish that lined our nightmares in black slime and swallowed helpless baby animals whole.

And that was just the view from unaffected California, where we continued guzzling BP product like they hadn't just fucked over the nation's entire Southern coast.

Yup. Turns out an entire quarter of Los Angeles' gas comes from a gargantuan BP-owned eyesore in south L.A. County, right between Torrance and Long Beach in the young city of Carson. You know, the one with the oversized American flag stamped on its ugly metal frontside, just in case we ever forget the awful, Earth-killing principles our country stands for? Yeah, that's the one.

Well, as of yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times, it's up for sale, so BP can free up some funds to pay for their damage to the Gulf. Any takers?

You, too, could be the proud billionaire at the helm of the West Coast's most prolific refinery. (Just please try not to get all your shit all up in the Los Angeles river, which deposits right into the Long Beach cove, if you can help it or whatever.)

The Times spoke with Charles Langley, senior gasoline analyst at the Utility Consumers Action Network in San Diego, who called the Carson fuel kitchen an "800-pound gorilla" -- nice! -- and warned that the exit of BP from SoCal, however satisfying conceptually, might mean higher gas prices.

"It will be interesting to see who regulators will allow to buy it because there are almost no current players in the California refining market who could buy it without dominating the market completely. ... Only if we get a new player buying this refinery could it be good for consumers. We used to have 21 refineries. Now we have 10 refineries owned by seven companies, and we've already seen consolidation that is anticompetitive."

So... anyone besides Arco and Chevron interested in picking up the gasoline trade in Carson? Here's what you'll get, by the numbers:

630 acres of lush, smokestacky majesty

1,200 disgruntled employees

500 contractors

The capacity to process 265,000 barrels of oil a day into gas, diesel, jet fuel and petroleum coke (that's petcoke to biz insiders... Wikipedia says so!)

Come on, how about some friendly ozone-melting capitalism for the good of your fellow L.A. commuters? Especially now that the bus is even less of an option than before, somehow.

Along with a refinery BP is selling in Texas City, Texas, they're asking about $4.4 billion. And, according to the Times, "sales are anticipated to be wrapped up by the end of 2012." So get on it, you little entrepreneur you!

Tags:

Arco, BP, Carson, Chevron, gas, gas prices, oil refinery, oil spill, traffic

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WIlson the IDIOT

Your an IDIOT..do you realize what you saying about the 1200 employees? your so pampered in your life bashing someone in your article without properly investigating.

Justaninspector

Mr Writer.I hope by the nature of your article and your obvious distain for the petrochemical industry that you pedal your ass to work and work by candle light. and please dont say that you use a computer to write your acrticles. beacuse as i hope you know. just about everything you touch everyday is made from or uses products from the petrochemical industry. i will bet that you drive a car, use power from the grid, and have an ass load of plastic products in your home. YOUR AN ASS!!

Rcircle

this guy sounds like an uneducated tree- hugger. he blasts the refinery and the american flag, what an idiot! shut the refinery down, so we can drive more good paying jobs out of los angeles. then we can live on welfare like all the wetbacks in los angeles!

Offended

Mr Wilson you are an IDOT. You must not be an american if that is you view of the american flag. The eyesore as you call it was there a lot longer than most of everything else in the area along with the other refineries. I am not defending BP but the refinery and the people that work there. Yes I am one of them. You must be one of the people that see the steam/mist comming from our cooling towers and other vessels that we are poluting the whole south basin. Wrong ! We have spent more money and have more environmental people looking at than you could ever think of. All to protect the environment around us. We are the only refinery in the basin that self reports if we have an issue and the equipment is ether fixed asap or shut down if we can't resolve the issue. Yes we have mechanical break downs and other things but most are out of our controll. Just like when things break on a car, they are not always preventable. As for the gulf, they are not part of refining. They are a seperate division and BP was not the only one at falt but had the deepest pockets. I could go on and on but to you we are the scum of the earth and I would be wasting my breath. Just because you dislike BP the carson refinery and its people are not the bad guys. I am sure you and some other people had different opinions when Bp carson was Arco. If you and others don't like the our refinery and the other ones in the basin remember that they were here long before most of everything else in the area. If you a don't like it move and we would be better off. Go trash talk someone else.