Oil refiner to spend $525 million to reduce emissions

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Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 9:27 a.m.

ConocoPhillips, the largest U.S. oil refiner, will spend at least $525 million to reduce emissions at refineries in seven states under a clean-air settlement with the U.S. government.

The company also agreed to pay a $4.5 million civil penalty and to spend another $10 million on clean-air programs under the agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that agency and the Justice Department said in a statement in Washington.

"This is the largest of 13 settlements that EPA has made with U.S. refiners," Thomas V. Skinner, assistant EPA administrator, said in the statement. "We now have legal agreements with companies representing more than half of domestic refining capacity."

The agreement, filed in a federal court in Texas, will require ConocoPhillips to install pollution controls intended to reduce emissions by more than 47,000 tons per year.