Coryton Refinery facts for kids
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 Location in Essex
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| Country | England, United Kingdom |
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| City | Thurrock, Essex |
| Coordinates | 51°30′47″N 0°31′16″E / 51.513°N 0.521°E |
| Refinery details | |
| Operator | See owner |
| Owner(s) | Socony-Vacuum Corp, Socony Mobil Oil Company, Mobil Oil Corporation, BP, BP Amoco, Petroplus |
| Commissioned | 1953 |
| Decommissioned | 2012 |
| Capacity | 208,000 bbl/d (33,100 m3/d) |
| No. of employees | 1040 |
| No. of oil tanks | 220 |
The Coryton Refinery was a large oil refinery located in Essex, England. It sat right on the River Thames, about 28 kilometers (17 miles) from central London. It was an important part of the Port of London.
This refinery was the last of three big refineries in the Thames Estuary to keep working. It sent its products by road, sea, and train. It was also connected to the Stanlow Refinery in North West England by a special pipeline. A power station, called Coryton Power Station, was built nearby in 2002 and is still running today.
In 2012, the company that owned the refinery, Petroplus, went out of business. Because of this, Coryton Refinery stopped making products in June 2012. The area is now being changed into a new industrial park called Thames Enterprise Park.
Contents
History of Coryton Refinery
The land where Coryton Refinery stood has a long history. It wasn't always used for oil.
What was there before the refinery?
In 1895, a company called Kynochs built a factory on the site. This factory made explosives and ammunition. It opened in 1897. They even built a special village for their workers called Kynochtown. The factory made things like cordite and gunpowder. Kynochs also built a small railway line, the Corringham Light Railway (CLR). This railway helped move goods and people. The Kynoch factory closed in 1919.
How did it become an oil site?
In 1921, a company called Cory Brothers took over the site and the railway. They were coal merchants but wanted to get into the oil business. They built a place to store oil. They also started making their own brand of petrol called Corys' Motor Spirit. Some records say they also built a small refinery at this time. By 1937, this early refinery was processing 250,000 tonnes of oil each year.
Building the modern refinery
In 1950, the site was sold to an American company called Vacuum Oil Company, which later became Mobil. They closed the passenger part of the old railway. But they improved the part that connected to the main railway line.
A brand new, much bigger refinery started working in 1953. By 1954, it was processing 850,000 tonnes of oil each year. This grew to 2.4 million tonnes by 1964. The small village of Coryton was eventually taken down in the 1970s to make more space for the growing refinery. In 1977, they started building an extension to make even more gasoline. By 1978, the refinery stored about 1.5 million tonnes of oil. Around 800 people worked there.
BP takes over
The oil company BP started running Coryton in 1996. This happened when Mobil joined some of its operations with BP in Europe. In 1999, Mobil merged with another company called Exxon. After this, BP Amoco bought the rest of the refinery in 2000.
Petroplus ownership
In 2007, BP sold the Coryton plant to a company called Petroplus. They paid a lot of money for it, about £714.6 million (or $1.4 billion).
Why did Coryton Refinery close?
On January 24, 2012, Petroplus announced that it had gone bankrupt. This meant the future of the Coryton Refinery was uncertain. To make sure there was enough fuel in the UK, oil was brought in from other refineries.
On May 28, 2012, it was announced that the refinery would close. The people in charge of the bankruptcy could not find a buyer who wanted to keep the refinery running. On February 28, 2013, the gas supply to the site was turned off. About 12 hours later, the large flare (a tall chimney that burns off extra gas) went out. This marked the end of over 60 years of the refinery working.
What is the site now?
After the refinery closed, there were plans to turn it into a place to import diesel fuel. This project was delayed because the old refinery buildings were in worse condition than expected.
The Coryton Power Station, which started in 2002, is still working on part of the old refinery site.
How an oil refinery works
An oil refinery takes crude oil (raw oil from the ground) and turns it into useful products. Coryton Refinery had several main parts that helped do this:
- Crude oil distillation unit (CDU): This is where crude oil is heated and separated into different parts based on their boiling points.
- Vacuum distillation: This unit further separates heavier parts of the oil.
- Fluid catalytic cracker: This breaks down heavy oil molecules into lighter, more valuable products like gasoline.
- Catalytic reformer: This changes the structure of some oil parts to make higher-quality gasoline.
- Hydro desulphurisation units: These remove sulfur from fuels, making them cleaner for the environment.
- Alkylation unit: This unit combines small molecules to make high-quality gasoline.
These units worked together to produce many different products from crude oil.
Coryton Refinery facts
The Coryton refinery site was very large, covering about 150 hectares (370 acres). The main processing units were on the western side. The rest of the site was filled with many large storage tanks.
Crude oil arrived at the refinery by huge tankers. These ships could carry up to 250,000 tonnes of oil. The refinery had five jetties (docks) on the Thames for these ships.
The refinery could process up to 11 million tonnes of oil each year. This is about 208,000 barrels of oil every day!
In 2000, most of the crude oil came from the North Sea (60%). Other oil came from the Middle East, Africa, and Russia.
There were about 220 storage tanks on the site. The biggest ones could hold 80,000 tonnes of crude oil.
The refinery used water from the Thames for cooling. This water was cleaned before being returned to the river.
What products did Coryton make?
The refinery made many different products, mostly fuels:
- Petrol: 3.6 million tonnes each year (enough for 13 million litres of gasoline every day in 2000).
- Diesel: 2.7 million tonnes.
- Kerosene/jet fuel: 1.1 million tonnes.
- LPG (like propane): 0.2 million tonnes.
- Fuel oil: 1.7 million tonnes.
- Bitumen (used for roads): 0.3 million tonnes.
About 90.5% of what the refinery made was fuel. The rest included lubricants, bitumen, and wax.
About 40% of the products made at Coryton were sent abroad by ship. The other 60% was sent around the UK. This happened using pipelines, road tankers, trains, or smaller ships.
Fire at the refinery
A big fire happened at the refinery on October 31, 2007. People reported feeling the blast up to 14 miles away! Luckily, no one was seriously hurt. The refinery was only partly affected and could continue working.
Images for kids
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Coryton flare stack in 2007
