Baglan Bay () is a part of the Swansea Bay coastline and a district of

Neath Port Talbot Neath Port Talbot () is a Principal areas of Wales, county borough in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. Its principal towns are Neath, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry and Pontardawe. The county borough borders Bridgend County Borough and Rhon ...

county borough,

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. Baglan Bay is also the name of a local government community. Baglan Bay is served by the

M4 Motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is the third longest motorway in the United Kingdom, running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh ele ...

and the A48 road which traverse the northeastern edge of the area.

History

In the 19th century,

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

tinplate Tinplate consists of sheet metal, sheets of steel coated with a thin layer of tin to impede rust, rusting. Before the advent of cheap mild steel, the backing metal (known as "") was wrought iron. While once more widely used, the primary use of tinp ...

and

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

were exported from Baglan Pill. In 1963 BP (trading as British Hydrocarbon Chemicals, Ltd.) opened

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable s ...

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

at Baglan Bay, partly to benefit from the proximity of the BP

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...

at Llandarcy, which could supply feedstocks. The plants produced 125,000 tons of petrochemicals during the first year of operation. The main products were

ethylene Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula or . It is a colourless, flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon–carbon bond, carbon–carbon doub ...

(50-60,000 tons a year), ethylene dichloride (64,000 tons),

propylene Propylene, also known as propene, is an unsaturated organic compound with the chemical formula . It has one double bond, and is the second simplest member of the alkene class of hydrocarbons. It is a colorless gas with a faint petroleum-like o ...

, butadiene (5000 tons), and isobutylene. Several other companies built chemical plants at Baglan Bay. Forth Chemicals (a joint subsidiary of Monsanto and BHC), had a styrene monomer plant within the BHC site. The petrochemicals complex produced alcohols, styrene, olefins, and

benzene Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...

from the mid-1960s, and vinyl chloride monomer and

polyvinyl chloride Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons of ...

(PVC) from the early 1970s. By 1968, BP Baglan Bay was one of the largest petrochemical sites in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, employing 2500 workers at its peak in 1974. Other companies with plants at Baglan Bay included W. R. Grace (polybutenes) and Pfizer. However, market changes led to the gradual closure of the facility between 1994 and 2004. There were concerns about the incidence of cancer and mortality near the Baglan Bay petrochemical works.

Baglan Energy Park

Following the final closure of BP's Baglan Bay plant in 2004, the site was re-developed by BP, the

Welsh Development Agency Welsh Development Agency (WDA; ) was an executive agency (or QUANGO) and later designated an Assembly Sponsored Public Body (ASPB). Established in 1976, it was tasked with rescuing the ailing Welsh economy by encouraging business development and ...

(WDA) and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. Baglan Bay power station, a 500 MW combined cycle

gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

power plant operated by GE Power Systems was built and the remainder of the land was earmarked for a business park, the Baglan Energy Park. Businesses locating at the park benefit from low cost electrical

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

from the power station. Several plots are now developed with tenants or with speculative office and industrial premises available to let. A

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt ...

, Intertissue, part of the Italian paper tissue manufacturing company Sofidel Group, was completed in September 2006. The Energy Park is also home to the Baglan Bay Innovation Center, the Sustainable Product Engineering Centre for Innovative Functional Industrial Coatings ( SPECIFIC) project, Hi-Lex Cable System Ltd, Remploy Ltd, Montagne Jeunesse, headquarters for Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board, and headquarters for Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council's service response centre. New facilities are under construction for Shield Medicare Ltd (a subsidiary of US sanitation supply company Ecolab) and the University of Glamorgan’s Hydrogen research and demonstration centre. Developer TCN UK is planning to develop a . development called The Exchange which is expected to provide office space for 400 workers.

Plans

A wholly owned BP company, Abernedd Power Ltd, proposed a further two natural gas-fired power stations with a total generation capacity of 870 MW of electricity. The scheme reached the planning stage. Construction was due to start in 2010 to meet a projected shortfall in power generation capacity in the UK and Wales within the next 4 to 6 years. However, a revised plan for a smaller power station of 450 MW was approved. SSE now own the project and have submitted a variation to the plans to enable them to build an open cycle gas turbine power station. St. Modwen Properties acquired of BP-owned land in April 2009 with a view to developing the land for employment-led purposes. Scottish and Southern Energy completed the acquisition of the Abernedd Power Company in May 2009.

Nearest places

* Jersey Marine Beach * Baglan Bay power station * Crymlyn Burrows *

Briton Ferry Briton Ferry () is a town and Community (Wales), community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. The Welsh name may indicate that the church, ''llan'', is protected from the wind, ''awel''. Alternatively, ''Sawel'' may be a deri ...

* Baglan * Sandfields

Notes

External links

Baglan Energy ParkBaglan Baywww.geograph.co.uk : photos of Baglan Bay and surrounding area
{{Neath Port Talbot communities Swansea Bay Communities in Neath Port Talbot