The Whitegate refinery, near Whitegate, County Cork, is Ireland's only oil refinery. It has a capacity of 75,000

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...

of oil per day (bpd), sufficient to provide 40 percent of Ireland's fuel requirements. It was commissioned in 1959 and was redeveloped several times and produces a range of petroleum products.

History

In the late 1950s, the Government of Ireland wished to develop industry in the country. A consortium of oil companies formed the Irish Refining Company Limited to construct and operate a refinery; the participant companies and their interests were

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (the phonetic p ...

(40%),

Shell-Mex & BP Shell-Mex and BP Ltd was a British joint venture between petroleum companies Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) and BP. It was formed in 1932 when both companies decided to merge their United Kingdom marketing operations,Reference and contact details: GB ...

(40%) and

Caltex Caltex is a petroleum brand name of Chevron Corporation used in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Southern Africa. It is also the brand name of non-Chevron petroleum companies in some countries (such as New Zealand, and previously ...

(20%). The refinery was constructed on a 330-acre (133 ha) site at Whitegate, East Cork, County Cork. It was built over the period 1957 to 1959 at a cost of about £12.5 million. The refinery was commissioned in April 1959 with Esso as the operator. In 1965 the refinery was expanded to increase the capacity from 1.9 million tons per year to 2.5 million tons per year. The cost of the upgrade was £3 million. In 1981, the Irish Refining Company Limited closed the refinery because of poor financial returns. The government recognised that permanent closure would have major economic and strategic consequences. Ownership was transferred to the Irish state in March 1982 through the

Irish National Petroleum Corporation The Irish National Petroleum Corporation (INPC) is a semi-defunct Irish State-owned company which owned and operated the Whiddy Island Terminal on Whiddy Island and Whitegate refinery at Whitegate, both in County Cork, Ireland. It was founded ...

. The refinery was purchased by Tosco in July 2001, and Tosco were then taken over by

Phillips Petroleum Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in the ...

in September 2001. Phillips merged with Conoco in September 2002 to form

ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in ...

. In 2012,

Phillips 66 The Phillips 66 Company is an American Multinational corporation, multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Westchase, Houston, Houston, Texas. Its name, dating back to 1927 as a trademark of the Phillips Petroleum Compan ...

assumed ownership. Irving Oil purchased the refinery in 2016 and are the owner .

Plant and processes

Whitegate is a relatively simple refinery with a

Nelson complexity index The Nelson complexity index (NCI) is a measure to compare the secondary conversion capacity of a petroleum refinery with the primary distillation capacity. The index provides an easy metric for quantifying and ranking the complexity of various re ...

of 3.8. Crude oil arrives at the refinery by tanker at the Marine Terminal. This comprises two berths, Berth 1 for tankers of up to 160,000 tonnes and Berth 2 for coasters of up to 5,000 tonnes. Oil from the tankers is routed to one of seven floating roof crude oil tanks on Corkbeg Island where it is stored until required at the refinery. There are also ballast water facilities The operation of the refinery process plant is summarised in the following table. The products from the refinery are stored in the adjacent tank farm until required. Petroleum blendstocks are also imported via the Marine Terminal and are routed to the blending plant. High flash point products such as crude oil, gasolines, blendstocks, and naphtha are stored in floating roof tanks. Low flash point substances such as kerosene, gasoil, diesel and heavy fuel oil are stored in cone roof tanks. Propane and butane are stored at pressure in spherical vessels.

Utilities

A number of utilities support the refinery operations: * Ballast water treatment and disposal * Drains – including API separator * Demineralisation plant – for boiler feedwater * Electricity – 6.2 MW gas turbine

combined heat and power Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Cogeneration is a more efficient use of fuel or heat, because otherwise- wasted heat from elect ...

plant (CHP). There are two 110 kV feeder lines from the National Grid via the adjacent Whitegate substation. Electricity can also be fed from the refinery into the National Grid. * Steam – 13.5 tonnes per hour * Air – plant and instrument air * Process cooling – air coolers

Production

Crude oil supply

The supply of crude oil as the refinery's main feedstock from 1990 to 2019 is shown on the graph. Figures are in thousand

tonnes of oil equivalent The tonne of oil equivalent (toe) is a unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. It is approximately 42 gigajoules or 11.630 megawatt-hours, although as different crude oils have different calorif ...

Products

The products from the refinery are: * Propane * Butane * Gasoline * Kerosene * Diesel * Heating Oil * Heavy fuel oil * Sulphuric acid The production of each of the products in 2010 was:''Minerals Yearbook Area Reports International: Europe and Central Eurasia'', various editions The total production (in 1,000 barrels) from the refinery over the period 1994 to 2010 was:

Export

The majority of products are exported by sea via the Marine Terminal. LPG is transferred to the adjacent Calor gas bottling plant by pipeline. The road loading facility has five bottom loading bays for exporting gasoline, gas oil and kerosene to local consumers. The refinery was run at a loss of $22.5 million in 2020, as a result of reduced demand because of Covid. This compares to a profit of $84.7 million in 2019.

Whitegate power station

Adjacent to the refinery to the south (Coordinates: 51°49’07”N 08°15’17”W) is the Whitegate power station, Glanagow, County Cork. This 435 MW gas turbine station is owned by

Bord Gáis Cucerdea ( hu, Oláhkocsárd, Hungarian pronunciation: ) is a commune in Mureș County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Bord (''Bord''), Cucerdea, and Șeulia de Mureș (''Oláhsályi''). The commune is located in the sout ...

part of

Centrica Centrica plc is a British multinational energy and services company with its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire. Its principal activity is the supply of electricity and gas to consumers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the largest su ...

. It is designed to run on natural gas or distillate oil, the latter from the refinery, and operates as a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT).

References

{{reflist Oil refineries Petroleum in Ireland Energy in Ireland Energy infrastructure in the Republic of Ireland Energy infrastructure in Ireland Fossil fuels in the Republic of Ireland