BP said it agreed to sell its Southern California refinery and marketing business to Tesoro in a deal valued at $2.5 billion.
The centerpieces of the transaction are the BP refinery in Carson, which processes 266,000 barrels of crude oil per day and supplies fuel to much of the West Coast, and the company's network of about 800 gas stations in California, Arizona and Nevada.
The Carson refinery is considered a "high complexity" facility capable of processing a wider variety of crudes into California's clean-burning gasoline. The plant, a familiar sight to motorists on busy Interstate 405, is also next door to Tesoro's 97,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Wilmington, Calif.
Tesoro said Monday the acquisition was a good fit with its current operations in the car-crazy California retail market. "This transaction is a unique opportunity for Tesoro to combine the best aspects of two West Coast refining and marketing businesses resulting in a more efficient integrated refining, marketing and logistics system," Greg Goff, president and CEO," said in a written statement.
The sale of the Carson plant is the latest divestiture by BP, which is shifting its focus to the northern United States where it will take advantage of cheaper crude supplies from Canada. The company has also placed its huge Texas City, Texas, refinery on the market.
"Today's announcement is a significant step in the strategic refocusing of our U.S. fuels business," said Iain Conn, chief executive of BP's global refining and marketing business. "Together with the intended sale of Texas City, this will allow us to focus BP's operations and investments exclusively on our three northern U.S. refineries, which are crude feedstock advantaged, and their large and important marketing businesses."
The deal is expected to close before the middle of next year.
