We have operated in Australia since 1920. Our current operations extend from exploring for and developing natural gas and oil in the North West Shelf to manufacturing petroleum products at our refineries in Western Australia and Queensland to marketing fuels and other products at our BP service stations. We also have a Solar business in New South Wales and are the only manufacturer in commercial scale production of solar cells in Australia. Our other businesses include lubricants, petroleum distribution, shipping, marine, bitumen, and aviation fuel products.

    We have a capital investment in Australia of AUD$8.4 billion. We contribute approximately AUD$2.8 billion in taxes, royalty payments and excise duties to the government each year and employ approximately 2000 people across seven business units. These business units are Exploration, Refining, Supply, Marketing (includes Retail, Commercial and Bitumen), Aviation, Marine and Solar.

    The last two years have seen some exciting developments for Australia with the following significant developments:

    the integration of Amoco heritage Solarex and heritage BP Solar manufacturing lines into a new and larger facility at Homebush (in Sydney, New South Wales)

    the integration of Castrol into the commercial downstream fuels and lubricants business giving us a market share leadership position

    the roll out of our first next generation retail convenience store in Sydney under the BP Connect brand and opening of three Travel Centers along the Gold Coast Highway in Queensland offering our customers a new level of convenience and service

    the completion of our Clean Fuels upgrade project of the Bulwer Island refinery (capital investment in excess of AUD250 million), which has resulted in delivering introduction of low sulphur, no lead, low benzene fuels in advance of legislation in Australian capital cities

    the announcement of a wide ranging business review at our Kwinana refinery in Western Australia that will result in major changes in work processes and a significantly reduced work force as a response to strong competitive import pressures from the Asian refineries

    the discovery of new gas reserves (860 million barrels of oil equivalent) by the North West Shelf Joint Venture off the coast of Western Australia, which although not currently drawn upon, supports BP's long-term commitment to Australia and the North West Shelf

    the integration of our Australian businesses in BP's global internal carbon trading system. This scheme will save money and will be one of a range of measures to assist the Group to obtain its ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) target of a 10% reduction by 2010 from a 1990 baseline