The Gulf Refinery at Milford Haven was an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. The refinery, originally owned and operated by

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

, was opened in August 1968 by Queen Elizabeth II. The plant, constructed at a cost of approximately £35 million, produced a range of petroleum products and occupied an area of 300 acres (121.4 ha). It was initially designed to process 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day (3 million tonnes per year). The capacity was increased to a day of oil.

Oil import

Gulf Oil's crude oil was principally obtained from

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

and

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

through joint ventures with BP. Crude was shipped to

Bantry Bay Bantry Bay ( ga, Cuan Baoi / Inbhear na mBárc / Bádh Bheanntraighe) is a bay located in County Cork, Ireland. The bay runs approximately from northeast to southwest into the Atlantic Ocean. It is approximately 3-to-4 km (1.8-to-2.5 mil ...

in Ireland in 312,000 DWT (deadweight ton) ships. The Bantry Bay facility had a storage capacity of one million tonnes. It was commissioned just before the refinery opened at a cost of £13m. From Bantry Bay crude oil was shipped in 100,000 DWT ships to Gulf's refineries in Milford Haven, Denmark and Rotterdam.

Operations

The Milford Haven refinery was integrated with two petro-chemical plants, using oil products from the refinery as feed-stock. One produced 50,000 tonnes a year of benzene and the other 100,000 tonnes a year of cyclohexane. The refinery employed about 280 people. About 23 per cent of the refinery output was exported by train via a rail link to the national rail network. About 75 per cent of the output was exported by ship. Gulf Oil's refinery also supplied fuel oil to the nearby oil-fired 2,000 MW Pembroke power station (commissioned in 1968). The refining distillation capacity over the operational life of the refinery was as follows.

Owners

Gulf Oil merged with Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) in 1985 with both rebranded as Chevron.

Closure

The refinery closed down in December 1997, as part of plans by the Chevron Corporation, by then the owners of Gulf Oil, to withdraw from the downstream oil business in the UK. Today, the site is occupied by the Valero Pembrokeshire Oil Terminal (VPOT) and the

Dragon LNG terminal Milford Haven Waterway (''Welsh: Dyfrffordd Aberdaugleddau'') is a natural harbour in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is a ria or drowned valley which was flooded at the end of the Last Glacial Period, last ice age. The Daugleddau estuary winds west ...

References

{{Commons category, Gulf Refinery, Milford Haven Oil refineries in the United Kingdom Chevron Corporation Buildings and structures in Milford Haven

Oil import

Operations

Owners

Closure

See also

References