CLOSURE OF BP SWEDEN REFINERY FORECAST A Swedish Finance Ministry committee forecast that British Petroleum Plc <BP.L> may have to close its refinery in Gothenburg because of an anticipated worsening of the Swedish petroleum industry's competitiveness. It said in a report that the future of the Swedish refining business was bleak due to the steady drop in domestic oil consumption since the mid-1970s, a possible tightening of rules on sulphur content and competition from Norway's Mongstad facility of <Den Norske Stats Olieselskab> (Statoil) <STAT.OL> when its expansion is completed in the 1990s. The committee said the BP refinery, which lacks a de-sulphurisation plant, was likely to be closed or sold unless costly investments were made to enhance the facility's capacity to refine a broader range of products. But the committee noted that capacity utilisation had in recent years been above that of the European refining industry on average. The BP plant, in which Sweden's state-owned <OK Petroleum AB> has a 22 pct, started up in 1967 and has an annual capacity of 4.7 mln tonnes. There was nobody at British Petroleum immediately available for comment.