Washington, Dec 7 (IANS): British oil giant BP has said it is building a new facility in Houston that will house what it says will be the world's largest complex of supercomputers for farther and faster search for oil and gas.

BP officials Thursday said construction has already begun on the three-storey, 110,000-square-foot facility, part of the company's five-year, $100-million investment in high-performance computing, reported Xinhua citing The Houston Chronicle website.

The new high-performance computing centre, scheduled to open in 2013, will enable scientists to produce clear images of rock structures deep underground that can be used to identify potential drilling targets for oil and natural gas.

The new facility, which will replace a smaller existing one, will be equipped with 67,000 computers and is expected to be able to process data at a rate of two petaflops, a roughly 63 percent increase in speed from its existing facility's capabilities.

"This is not just about building a bigger and better computer," Robert Fryar, BP's executive vice president of production, said in a statement.

"BP's new high-performance computing centre will be as important to our global search for new energy resources as any piece of equipment we employ today, and it once again highlights BP's commitment to applying the best technology to the world's biggest energy challenges," he said.