Oil Storage and filling point - geograph

Buncefield oil depot is operated by Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL) and officially known as the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal. It is an oil depot located on the edge of

Hemel Hempstead Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500. Developed after the Second World War as a new ...

to the north of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

(UK). In December 2005 a series of explosions on the site caused the largest fire in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Construction and operation

Some local residents remember that the site was used during the Second World War to provide fuel for the bombers at

RAF Bovingdon Royal Air Force Bovingdon or more simply RAF Bovingdon is a former Royal Air Force station located near the village of Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England, about south-west of Hemel Hempstead and south-east of Berkhamsted. During the Second ...

. The expanded site was built in 1968 by

George Wimpey George Wimpey was a British construction firm. Formed in 1880 and based in Hammersmith, it initially operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a constructi ...

for BP and Shell-Mex. A

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

was constructed to link two

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

refineries in Stanlow in the North West of England at

Ellesmere Port Ellesmere Port ( ) is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, south of Birkenhead, southwest of Runcorn and south of ...

in Cheshire, and

Shell Haven Shell Haven was a port on the north bank of the Thames Estuary at the eastern end of Thurrock, Essex, England and then an oil refinery. The refinery closed in 1999 and the site was purchased by DP World who received planning consent in May 200 ...

on the

Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...

at Stanford-le-Hope in

Thurrock Thurrock () is a unitary authority area with borough status and unparished area in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is part of the London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The ...

. The pipeline allowed "white oil" products, such as

petrol Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic c ...

and

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

, to be transported cheaply and efficiently across the country. Along with Buncefield, a number of other pipeline-fed installations were built at the same time. These depots were always shared by the oil companies who have benefited together from the lower costs compared with other transportation methods. However, when they opened, such depots, including Buncefield, sometimes became difficult to manage from an

industrial relations Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade unions, employer organizations, ...

perspective. Drivers and other operatives from different oil companies, but members of the same

Trades Union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

, usually the

Transport and General Workers Union The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU or T&G) was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland – where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) to differentiate its ...

, were able to coordinate their industrial action more effectively by being on the same site as one another. In 1990 a further pipeline was completed, linking the site to the Lindsey Oil Refinery in

Humberside Humberside () was a Non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, create ...

. Before the fire, which devastated over a quarter of the site, the terminal was the fifth largest oil depot in the UK with pipelines to Humberside,

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

and

Heathrow Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others bei ...

and

Gatwick airport Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after H ...

s radiating from it. The terminal operator is Total, which owns 60% of the depot, with

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...

owning the remaining 40%, though BP and

also make use of its facilities. As the fifth largest oil depot in the UK, it had a capacity of approximately 60 million Imperial gallons (273 million litres) of fuel, although it was not always at capacity. It previously filled 400 tanker lorries every day and handled around 2.37 million tonnes of oil products every year. In March 2008 BP announced it will soon be restarting some operations at the site with the storage and supply of aviation fuel to Heathrow. BP must comply with more than 50 safety conditions including refurbished tanks and an improved alarm system. The site consists of a northern and a southern portion, with the southern being used by BP and the northern portion being divided into 3 sectors; HOSL West, the BPA area, and HOSL East. Texaco, Total and Shell use HOSL West and HOSL East, while the BPA area is occupied by facilities of the

British Pipeline Agency British Pipeline Agency Ltd (BPA) is a joint venture, established in 1969, between BP Oil UK and Shell UK. The company operates the UK oil pipeline network of oil pipelines which transport petroleum products around the UK. Operations BPA repl ...

(BPA), mostly for aviation fuel. HOSL West was the main site in the northern portion of HOSL, and was used for storage of a variety of fuels excluding aviation fuel and

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

, which are stored at BPA. The fire destroyed most of HOSL West and the BPA area.

References

External links

Download review of reports on Buncefield
Compiled b
LINK Associates InternationalHertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL)
— Official site
Guardian Unlimited Special report: Oil depot explosion
collection by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' of articles, pictures and an interactive guide {{Oil storage and distribution in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Hemel Hempstead Petroleum infrastructure in the United Kingdom Oil terminals TotalEnergies BP buildings and structures

Construction and operation

See also

References

External links