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 ...
in
South Killingholme
South Killingholme is a village and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,108.
The parish was predominately agricultural and sparsely populated and the village small until the ...
,
North Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area in Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 167,446 in the 2011 census. The borough includes the towns of Scunthorpe, Brigg, Haxey, Crowle, Epworth, Bottesford, Kirton in Lindsey and Bar ...
. It is situated south of the railway line next to the A160; Total's Lindsey Oil Refinery is north of the railway line.
It is situated approximately ten miles north west of
Grimsby
Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of L ...
At the time of construction Continental Oil (Conoco) owned the Jet distributor of petrol. Jet was formed in 1953 and was based nearby in
Keadby
__NOTOC__
Keadby is a small village in North Lincolnshire, England. It is situated just off the A18, west of Scunthorpe, and on the west bank of the River Trent. Keadby is in the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire. The appropriate civil ...
in northern Lincolnshire. In June 1961 Continental Oil bought Jet Petroleum, and its 400 garages. In 1960 Continental had bought the German petrol company Sopi, and its 300 garages.
The refinery was first planned in July 1964, and in August 1964 it was expected to cost £15 million, and to be operational by late 1966.
Construction
Construction started in August 1966. It was built for Continental Oil (UK) Ltd. It was originally estimated to cost £25 million but cost twice that. It was built by Power-Gas Corporation, a subsidiary of Sheffield-based Davy-Ashmore who had a £22 million contract. It should have been built by November 1968, and the delay in completion was blamed on bad weather in the summer of 1968, and the 1968/9 winter. Davy-Ashmore lost £12 million on the project. The railway sidings were installed by the
Ward Group
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a priso ...
of Sheffield. 75 miles of steel tubing were made by the Corby steel works for £250,000. In September 1967 there were gales across the country and a man was killed on the site when an engineering shed fell on him. In October 1967 there was a strike, and 120 workers in the Constructional Engineers Union were sacked. In January 1968 a 20-year-old worker from Dublin was killed when a 275-ton coke drum, being raised by a twin jib rig onto a gantry, fell 50 feet to the ground, causing the worker to be crushed by a crane.
The £330,000 18-mile underground pipeline from
Tetney
Tetney is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, and just west of the Prime Meridian.
History
On the edge of the village is the site of a Marconi Beam Station from where telegrams were sent in 1927 to Australia and I ...
was made by O'Connor and Davies, part of British Steel Constructions. Six coke silos were built by
Sir Robert McAlpine
Sir Robert McAlpine Limited is a family-owned building and civil engineering company based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It carries out engineering and construction in the infrastructure, heritage, commercial, arena and stadium, healthcare, educa ...
in a £200,000 contract. The sub-sea part of the Tetney pipeline was replaced in 2015.
Corporate social responsibility
The Humber Refinery has strong community outreach with recent investments of $500,000 in 2009 to the local school Oasis Academy Immingham to encourage engineering and promote STEM. In 2014 a donation of £240,000 was given to build an Enterprise Suite at Killingholme School helping students to learn employability skills. The Refinery was also founder member of BEEP Business Education and Enterprise Partnership that was established in 2011 to strengthen links between business and education offering a range of activities for schools in the Northern Lincolnshire area.
The refinery runs a community liaison group called KAAG (Killingholme Area Advisory Group) they meet monthly and discuss refinery operations and any village concerns. They also organise events for North & South Killingholme, including the free Senior Citizens Christmas Party, Murder Mystery event and sponsor the village children's Christmas party.
Environmental
The refinery has continually had the lowest emissions of any UK refinery.
In 2005 the refinery dedicated 120 acres of its land to plant a community woodland. Over 67,500 trees were planted and a competition launched to name it. A student at Killingholme School won and it was called Mayflower Wood, reinforcing the local areas links with the Pilgrim Fathers. The woodland is open to the community with permissive rights of way. The Woodland was opened by Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG GCVO ADC.
Production
It opened in July 1969, producing around . At the time of its opening Britain was using around 83,000 tons of
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
coke a year, most of which was imported, and used in
aluminium smelting
Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery.
This is an electrolyti ...
. Much of the crude oil came from Libya, as Continental Oil had large discoveries there, and also in Dubai.
The refinery had its own fire brigade. This was used on 8 August 1972 when there was a fire, with 50 feet flames, and a 49-year-old man from Grimsby was killed.
In the mid-1970s there was a £45 million expansion of the plant to take its processing output to . At this time, around a third of the oil it processed came from the North Sea. It was the first refinery to receive oil from British National Oil Corporation's (
Britoil
Britoil plc was originally a privatised British oil company operating in the North Sea. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company was acquired by BP in 1988, becoming a brand of it.Thistle field on 15 April 1978.
In the mid-1990s Conoco invested £500 million in the plant.
Production
Production facilities include an
alkylation
Alkylation is the transfer of an alkyl group from one molecule to another. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion, or a carbene (or their equivalents). Alkylating agents are reagents for effecti ...
plant,
rotary kiln
A rotary kiln is a pyroprocessing device used to raise materials to a high temperature (calcination) in a continuous process. Materials produced using rotary kilns include:
* Cement
* Lime
* Refractories
* Metakaolin
* Titanium dioxide
* Al ...
s for
petroleum coke
Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in particular, derives from a final cracki ...
manufacturing.
Crude oil arrives by tanker at
Tetney
Tetney is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, and just west of the Prime Meridian.
History
On the edge of the village is the site of a Marconi Beam Station from where telegrams were sent in 1927 to Australia and I ...
in East Lindsey, then stored at the Tetney oil terminal, before being pumped underground to the refinery for refining.
of petrol are produced per day, most of which is loaded onto tanker lorries at Immingham Dock. 70% of production is for the UK market, the remainder is exported.
700,000 tonnes of petroleum coke are produced each year. A purpose-built warehouse on the docks stores the petroleum coke before it is shipped out.
Process units
* Thermal cracker
* Atmospheric and vacuum distillation
* Two delayed coking units
* Virgin distillate hydrodesulpuriser
* Cracked distillate hydrodeulphuriser
* Heavy gas oil desulphuriser
* Two catalytic reforming units
* Pentane – hexane isomerisation plant
* Aromatics extraction plant
* Toluene dealkylation plant
* Gas recovery plant
* Two sulphur recovery units
* Tail gas treatment unit (Brought online in 2015)
* Fluid catalytic cracker
* Propylene – butylene catalytic polymerisation unit
* Pressure swing absorber for hydrogen recovery
* Cryogenic LPG recovery plant
* Propylene recovery and HF alkylation unit
In April 2001, a large explosion occurred on the Saturate Gas Plant area of the site. ConocoPhillips was investigated and subsequently fined £895,000 and ordered to pay £218,854 costs by the Health and Safety Executive for failing to effectively monitor the degradation of the refineries' pipework. The company pleaded guilty to these charges in court and has since implemented a Risk Based Inspection programme.
See also
*
Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal
Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal (TGT) is a former gas terminal on the Lincolnshire coast on ''Mablethorpe Road'' at Theddlethorpe St Helen close to Mablethorpe in East Lindsey in England. It is just off the A1031 and next door to a holiday camp and ...
– owned by ConocoPhillips on the Lincolnshire coast near
Mablethorpe
Mablethorpe is a seaside town in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, part of the civil parish of Mablethorpe and Sutton.OS Explorer map 283:Louth and Mablethorpe: (1:25 000): The population including nearby Sutton-on-Sea was 12, ...