Sunbury Research Centre | |
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BP Sunbury, BP International Ltd, International Centre for Business & Technology, ICBT Sunbury | |
![]() April 2007 | |
Former names | Sunbury Research Station, BP Research Centre, Sunbury Research Laboratories |
Alternative names | Sunbury Business park |
General information | |
Type | Energy Research Centre |
Address | Chertsey Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey (former Middlesex), TW16 7LN [1] |
Coordinates | 51°26′N0°26′W / 51.43°N 0.43°W |
Elevation | 45 m (148 ft) |
Current tenants | 3,500 staff in 55 business teams |
Completed | 1917 |
Inaugurated | 1917 |
Client | BP |
Landlord | BP |
Dimensions | |
Other dimensions | 33 acres |
The Sunbury Research Centre -- also known as ICBT Sunbury -- is a main research institute of BP in north-east Surrey.
A research institute or research center is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural science research, there are also many research institutes in the social science as well, especially for sociological and historical research purposes.
BP plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the world's seven oil and gas "supermajors", whose performance in 2012 made it the world's sixth-largest oil and gas company, the sixth-largest energy company by market capitalization and the company with the world's 12th-largest revenue (turnover). It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has renewable energy interests in biofuels and wind power.
Surrey is a subdivision of the English region of South East England in the United Kingdom. A historic and ceremonial county, Surrey is also one of the home counties. The county borders Kent to the east, East and West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west, Berkshire to the northwest, and Greater London to the northeast.
It began in 1917 as the Sunbury Research Station. Research began with the employment of two chemists to look into the viscosity of fuel oil for the Navy in the First World War, and the production of toluene. In the 1920s research took place into cracking, at the plant at Uphall in Scotland (West Lothian). The first new building opened in July 1931. 76 staff were there in 1929, 99 in 1934 and 197 in 1939.
The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to gradual deformation by shear stress or tensile stress. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water.
Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. In general terms, fuel oil is any liquid fuel that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash point of approximately 42 °C (108 °F) and oils burned in cotton or wool-wick burners. Fuel oil is made of long hydrocarbon chains, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatics. The term fuel oil is also used in a stricter sense to refer only to the heaviest commercial fuel that can be obtained from crude oil, i.e., heavier than gasoline and naphtha.
A navy or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields. The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores. The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of the navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications, open-ocean applications, and something in between, although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division.
By the 1950s, BP Research was in a 39-acre site in Sunbury. [2] Geophysical research had also taken place at Kirklington Hall Research Station in Nottinghamshire, until 1957. Around 1958, the site was expanded with a new Physics laboratory and five other buildings. A Linear electron accelerator was installed. By early 1958, Kirklington Hall had been sold.
Geophysics is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and composition; its dynamics and their surface expression in plate tectonics, the generation of magmas, volcanism and rock formation. However, modern geophysics organizations use a broader definition that includes the water cycle including snow and ice; fluid dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere; electricity and magnetism in the ionosphere and magnetosphere and solar-terrestrial relations; and analogous problems associated with the Moon and other planets.
Kirklington Hall Research Station was a geophysical research institute of BP in Kirklington, Nottinghamshire.
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditional county town is Nottingham, though the county council is based in West Bridgford in the borough of Rushcliffe, at a site facing Nottingham over the River Trent.
Products that the British Petroleum Company made in the 1950s were BP Motor Spirit and BP Energol (visco-static motor oil). But Britain would not produce much oil of its own until the mid-1970s when North Sea oil arrived at the Forties Oil Field.
Motor oil, engine oil, or engine lubricant is any of various substances comprising base oils enhanced with additives, particularly antiwear additive plus detergents, dispersants and, for multi-grade oils viscosity index improvers. Motor oil is used for lubrication of internal combustion engines. The main function of motor oil is to reduce friction and wear on moving parts and to clean the engine from sludge and varnish (detergents). It also neutralizes acids that originate from fuel and from oxidation of the lubricant (detergents), improves sealing of piston rings, and cools the engine by carrying heat away from moving parts.
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid petroleum and natural gas, produced from petroleum reservoirs beneath the North Sea.
The Forties Oil Field is the largest oil field in the UK sector of the North Sea, 110 miles east of Aberdeen. It was discovered in 1970 and first produced oil in 1975 under ownership of British Petroleum, now called BP.
Three new buildings were built from 1998 as part of Phase 1. Since 2001, four new buildings were built as part of Phase 2.
It is situated off the A244 (via the A308) in the north of Sunbury-on-Thames, and Surrey, on the Surrey boundary with London. To the east nearby is Sunbury Common.
The A308, is a road in England in two parts. The road has four principal axes to stay no more than 3 miles (4.8 km) from the River Thames to run from Central London upstream to Bisham, Berkshire which faces the town of Marlow across the river, explaining its four main orientations. The road is dualled each way in the section furthest from the River Thames, in north Surrey and forms one of the motorway spurs to the large town of Maidenhead.
Sunbury-on-Thames is a suburban village in the borough of Spelthorne, in the county of Surrey in England. It extends from the left bank of the River Thames and the south-west of the Greater London boundary and is approximately 13 miles (21 km) from Charing Cross, London. Suburban neighbourhoods make up most of its area, Lower Sunbury, added to which is part of the Metropolitan Green Belt including Kempton Park. The town centre is by the London end of the M3 motorway, elsewhere are three shopping parades and riverside public houses. In tourism Lower Sunbury holds an annual fair and regatta each August.
The retail division of BP UK is at Witan Gate House. BP employs around 15,000 people in the UK.
It has an enhanced oil recovery laboratory. [3]
Staines-upon-Thames is a town on the River Thames in Surrey, England. Historically part of Middlesex, it was known to the Romans as Pontes or Ad Pontes, then as Stanes and subsequently Staines.
Amoco Corporation, originally Standard Oil Company (Indiana), is a global chemical and oil company that was founded in 1889 around a refinery located in Whiting, Indiana, United States.
Atlantic Richfield Company is an American oil company with operations in the United States, Indonesia, the North Sea, the South China Sea, and Mexico. It has more than 1,300 gas stations in the western part of the United States, and recently five gas stations at northwestern Mexico. ARCO was formed by the merger of East Coast–based Atlantic Refining and California-based Richfield Oil Corporation in 1966. A merger in 1969 brought in Sinclair Oil Corporation. It became a subsidiary of UK-based BP plc in 2000 through its BP West Coast Products LLC (BPWCP) affiliate. On August 13, 2012, it was announced that Tesoro would purchase ARCO and its refinery for $2.5 billion. However, the deal came under fire due to increasing fuel prices. Many activists urged state and federal regulators to block the sale due to concerns that it would reduce competition and could lead to higher fuel prices at ARCO stations. On June 3, 2013, BP sold ARCO and the Carson Refinery to Tesoro for $2.5 billion. BP sold its Southern California terminals to Tesoro Logistics LP, including the Carson Storage Facility. BP will continue to own the ampm brand and sell it to Tesoro for Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. BP exclusively licensed the ARCO rights from Tesoro for Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio was an American oil company, and the earliest component of the original Standard Oil company founded by John D. Rockefeller. Sohio was acquired by British Petroleum, now called BP.
The Rumaila oil field is a super-giant oil field located in southern Iraq, approximately 20 mi (32 km) from the Kuwaiti border. Discovered in 1953 by the Basrah Petroleum Company (BPC), an associate company of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the field is estimated to contain 17 billion barrels, which accounts for 12% of Iraq's oil reserves estimated at 143.1 billion barrels. Rumaila is said to be the largest oilfield ever discovered in Iraq and is considered the third largest oil field in the world.
BP Canada Energy Group ULC, is a Canadian oil and gas company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, and a subsidiary of BP plc.
Spelthorne is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Kwasi Kwarteng, a Conservative.
Shell-Mex and BP Ltd was a British joint marketing venture between petroleum companies Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) and British Petroleum (BP). It was formed in 1932 when both companies decided to merge their United Kingdom marketing operations, partly in response to the difficult economic conditions of the times.
National Benzole was a petroleum brand used in the United Kingdom from 1919 to the 1960s. In 1957 the National Benzole Co. became wholly owned by Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd but continued its separate trading identity. In the early 1960s National Benzole was re-branded as National and continued trading as a UK retailer of petroleum products until the early 1990s, when the brand was phased out by parent company BP.
The Bayford Group is a British company founded in 1919 in Leeds, England. The Company has several businesses in its varied portfolio, including BP fuel card distributor Be Fuelcards; property development company Bayford Developments; holiday rentals portfolio, Decadent Retreats; and Shell fuel card agent The Right Fuelcard Company.
Grangemouth Refinery is a mature oil refinery complex located on the Firth of Forth in Grangemouth, Scotland. Currently operated by Petroineos, it is the only crude oil refinery in Scotland and currently one of six in the UK. It is reputedly the UK's second-oldest refinery, and it supplies refined products to customers in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland, as well as occasionally further afield.
Supertest Petroleum was an oil and gas company in Canada that operated from 1923 to 1973. Its head office was in London, Ontario. It marketed itself as "Canada's All-Canadian Company", and was acquired by BP Canada in 1971.
Rudolf Karl Anton Tomaschek was a German experimental physicist. His scientific efforts included work on phosphorescence, fluorescence, and (tidal) gravitation. Tomaschek was a supporter of deutsche Physik, which resulted in his suspension from his university posts after World War II. From 1948 to 1954, he worked in England for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). In 1954, when AIOC became BP, he went to Germany and was president of the Permanent Tidal Commission.
The East Midlands Oil Province, also known as the East Midlands Petroleum Province, covers the petroliferous geological area across the north-eastern part of the East Midlands of England that has a few small oil fields. The largest field in the province is the Welton oil field, the second largest onshore oil field in the UK.
Richard Frederick Paynter Hardman, CBE is a British geologist and the doyen of applied petroleum geologists. He remained the President of the Geological Society of London, 1996 - 1998 and Chairman of the Petroleum Society of Great Britain. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has worked in oil and gas exploration as a geologist in Libya, Kuwait, Colombia, Norway, and the North Sea with companies like BP, Amoco and Amerada Hess. Working as an Oil & Gas Drilling & Exploration consultant, he has remained Executive Director, Exploration at Regal Petroleum (2005–2006), Atlantic Petroleum UK, and has been Director FX Energy, Inc., based in Salt Lake City, US, since 2003.
The ICBT Campus, popularly known as the International College of Business and Technology is a BOI approved project formed to conduct internationally recognized educational programs in association with educational institutes.
Marchwood Power Station is an 898.1 MW gas-fired power station in Marchwood, near Southampton, England. It is situated beside estuary of the River Test where it meets Southampton Water, opposite the Port of Southampton. It is built on the site of an oil-fired power station, demolished in the 1990s.