Pembroke Refinery in Pembrokeshire | |
Country | UK |
---|---|
City | Pembroke, Pembrokeshire |
Coordinates | 51°41′10″N5°01′44″W / 51.686°N 5.029°W |
Refinery details | |
Owner(s) | Valero |
Commissioned | 1964 |
Capacity | 220,000 bbl/d (35,000 m3/d) |
No. of employees | 700 (2000) [1] |
The Pembroke Refinery is an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales at Rhoscrowther in the community of Angle. It first came on stream in 1964 and was Regent/Texaco's only British refinery. The refinery occupies a prominent position on the south bank of the Milford Haven Waterway and can be seen for many miles. Around a quarter of the site is within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park which was created in 1952.
The refinery came on stream in 1964. It was initially owned by the Regent Oil Company, a large domestic marketer of Trinidad-produced oils. [2] Regent was fully acquired by Texaco in 1956 (although the brand name was only phased out in the UK in favour of Texaco in the late 1960s).
When it first came on-stream most of the crude oil for the refinery came from the Middle East with some from Libya, Venezuela and Trinidad. Products were shipped to all parts of the UK, with 96 per cent going by ship as there was no rail link to the national rail network. [3]
Pembroke refinery also supplied fuel oil to the nearby oil-fired 2,000 MW Pembroke power station (commissioned in 1968). [3]
Chevron acquired Texaco in 2000. Valero Energy Corporation bought the refinery from Chevron in 2011. [4]
In August 1992, Texaco offered to purchase the entire village of Rhoscrowther [5] which lies immediately adjacent to the refinery. Many of the residents accepted the offer – especially after a large explosion which occurred two years later – which included their properties being purchased at market price plus reasonable expenses. Once the properties were acquired by the refinery, they were demolished. Today, only five houses, a 14th-century church and a farm are all that remain of Rhoscrowther.
The historical refining distillation capacity was as follows. [6] [7]
Year | Capacity (million tonnes per year) |
---|---|
1965 | 5.1 |
1972 | 7.0 |
1975 | 9.0 |
1979 | 9.0 |
1985 | 9.0 |
1990 | 9.0 |
1995 | 9.0 |
2000 | 9.25 |
2005 | 9.25 |
2010 | 10.5 |
The refinery has a fluid catalytic cracking unit that came on stream in 1982. The refinery also has an HF Alkylation unit, catalytic reforming unit and three hydrotreating type units.
Pembroke refinery has the capability of refining high Total Acid Number crude oils like Captain and Doba crudes. [8]
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha. Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha. The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.
Valero Energy Corporation is an American-based fuels producer mostly involved in manufacturing and marketing transportation fuels and other related products. It is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Throughout the United States, Canada, and the U.K., the company owns and operates 15 refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.2 million barrels per day, two renewable diesel plants that produce approximately 1.2 billion gallons per year, and 12 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.6 billion gallons as its subsidiaries.
Catalytic reforming is a chemical process used to convert naphthas from crude oil into liquid products called reformates, which are premium "blending stocks" for high-octane gasoline. The process converts low-octane linear hydrocarbons (paraffins) into branched alkanes (isoparaffins) and cyclic naphthenes, which are then partially dehydrogenated to produce high-octane aromatic hydrocarbons. The dehydrogenation also produces significant amounts of byproduct hydrogen gas, which is fed into other refinery processes such as hydrocracking. A side reaction is hydrogenolysis, which produces light hydrocarbons of lower value, such as methane, ethane, propane and butanes.
EP Petroecuador is the national oil company of Ecuador. Ecuador is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, although it is the smallest member, the country produced 531,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2019. The oil corporation is a significant part of the Ecuadorian economy. The petroleum industry has expanded to the production of refined commodities such as gasoline, liquefied petroleum, and jet fuel. The government of Ecuador is highly dependent on the revenues from the energy sector to support its budget and finance state projects.
Milford Haven Waterway is a natural harbour in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is a ria or drowned valley which was flooded at the end of the last ice age. The Daugleddau estuary winds west to the sea. As one of the deepest natural harbours in the world, it is a busy shipping channel, trafficked by ferries from Pembroke Dock to Ireland, oil tankers and pleasure craft. Admiral Horatio Nelson, visiting the haven with the Hamiltons, described it as the next best natural harbour to Trincomalee in Ceylon and "the finest port in Christendom". Much of the coastline of the Waterway is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, listed as Milford Haven Waterway SSSI.
The Llandarcy Oil Refinery, also known as the National Oil Refinery, BP Llandarcy and Skewen refinery, was the United Kingdom's first oil refinery, initially opened by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company on 29 June 1922, although operations had begun on 1 July 1921. Before this, the only oil refined in the UK came from Scottish shale.
Rhoscrowther was a village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in Pembrokeshire, Wales on the south shore of the Milford Haven Waterway. The placename is Welsh and perhaps means "crwth-player's moor". It is part of the community of Angle.
Coryton Refinery was an oil refinery in Essex, England, on the estuary of the River Thames 28 miles (45 km) from central London, between Shell Haven Creek and Hole Haven Creek, which separates Canvey Island from the mainland.
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 2007 for the new London Gateway deep water container port at the site. The neighbouring Coryton Refinery remained in operation until 2012.
Fawley Refinery is an oil refinery located at Fawley, Hampshire, England. The refinery is owned by Esso Petroleum Company Limited, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation, which acquired the site in 1925. Situated on Southampton Water, it was rebuilt and extended in 1951 and is now the largest oil refinery in the United Kingdom, and one of the most complex refineries in Europe. With a capacity of 270,000 barrels (43,000 m3) per day, Fawley provides 20 per cent of the UK's refinery capacity. Over 2,500 people are employed at the site.
Grangemouth Refinery is an oil refinery complex located on the Firth of Forth in Grangemouth, Scotland, currently operated by Petroineos. It is the only operating crude oil refinery in Scotland and currently one of the six remaining refineries in the UK. Grangemouth is the oldest refinery in the UK and supplies 65% of Scotland's oil products, including petrol and diesel.
The Chevron Richmond Refinery is a 2,900-acre (1,200 ha) petroleum refinery in Richmond, California, on San Francisco Bay. It is owned and operated by Chevron Corporation and employs more than 1,200 workers, making it the city's largest employer. The refinery processes approximately 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of crude oil a day in the manufacture of petroleum products and other chemicals. The refinery's primary products are motor gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel and lubricants.
The Esso Refinery at Milford Haven was an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. Construction started in 1957 and the refinery was opened in 1960 by the Duke of Edinburgh. Construction cost £18 million and the refinery had the initial capacity to process 4.5 million tons of crude oil a year.
The Gulf Refinery at Milford Haven was an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. The refinery, originally owned and operated by Gulf Oil, 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. It was initially designed to process 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The capacity was increased to 119,000 barrels (18,900 m3) a day of oil.
The town of Milford Haven was founded in 1793 by Sir William Hamilton, who initially invited Quaker whalers from Nantucket to live in his town, and then, in 1797, the Navy Board to create a dockyard for building warships.
The Sea Empress oil spill occurred at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales on 15th February 1996. The Sea Empress was en route to the Texaco oil refinery near Pembroke when she became grounded on mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. Over the course of a week, she spilt 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas. It was Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time.
Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
Milford Haven Refinery was an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, United Kingdom. The refinery began operating in 1973 under Amoco's ownership, but in its final years it was owned by Murco Petroleum. The closure of the refinery was announced in November 2014. The site was sold to Puma Energy in 2015 for use as a petroleum storage and distribution terminal.
The Port Harcourt Refining Company,, is a Nigeria-based oil and gas company primarily specializing in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products. It is headquartered in Port Harcourt metropolitan area of Rivers State, southeastern Nigeria. The company is a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Dangote Refinery is an oil refinery owned by Dangote Group that was inaugurated on 22 May 2023 in Lekki, Nigeria. When fully operational, it is expected to have the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it the largest single-train refinery in the world. The investment is over US$19 billion.