Lytton Oil Refinery is 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 ...

in the

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

suburb of Lytton in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. It is owned and operated by

Ampol Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,900 Ampol-branded stations across the country . It also ope ...

. It has a capacity of 6.5 billion litres of crude oil per year. The facility employs 550 people.

History

Lytton refinery started operation in 1965. It was established by Ampol on the site of the former

Fort Lytton Fort Lytton is a heritage-listed 19th century coastal fort in the suburb of Lytton in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The name “Fort Lytton” is also used to describe the military base that surrounded the fort. Fort Lytton was built in ...

. It was almost directly across the

Brisbane River The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Go ...

from Bulwer Island where

Amoco Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...

was also building the Bulwer Island Refinery.

Moonie pipeline

The Lytton refinery was built at the end of a pipeline from the Moonie oilfield. It was the first major oil or gas pipeline in Australia. Construction started in June 1963 and it was officially opened in May 1964. It was diameter. The pipeline itself cost A£4,500,000. Following a leak from the pipeline in the Brisbane suburb of Algester, the pipeline was closed in July 2007.

Fuel security

In 2021, Lytton was one of only two oil refineries (with the

Geelong Oil Refinery The Geelong Oil Refinery is an oil refinery owned and operated by Viva Energy in Corio near Geelong in the Australian state of Victoria. In 2017, it was Australia's second-largest oil refinery, able to process 7.5 billion litres of crude oil pe ...

) remaining in Australia. The refinery operated at a loss of $145 million in 2020. Twenty years earlier, Australia had eight operating oil refineries. As they have gradually been closed by the companies that operate them, there has been concern as to whether the Australian government should act to maintain a domestic refining capability. At the beginning of 2021, the government offered one cent per litre of refined transport fuel produced in Australia provided that the refinery owner agrees to keep it operating for the duration of the program. Lytton refinery did not immediately accept this package while Ampol undertook a review. In May 2021 after the government increased the amount of state subsidies, Ampol accepted their offer and committed to ongoing refinery operations until at least 2027.

Transition

The company plans to move to

net zero Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the " ...

emissions by 2040. Ampol has plans to use the facility to produce

green hydrogen Green hydrogen (GH2 or GH2) is hydrogen generated by renewable energy or from low-carbon power. Green hydrogen has significantly lower carbon emissions than grey hydrogen, which is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, which makes up the b ...

References

{{reflist Oil refineries in Australia Industrial buildings in Queensland 1965 establishments in Australia Industrial buildings completed in 1965

History

Moonie pipeline

Fuel security

Transition

See also

References