Bulwer Island Refinery was an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

Bulwer Island Bulwer Island is a reclaimed tidal mangrove island at the mouth of the Brisbane River in the suburb of Pinkenba, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is named for Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the British Colonial Secretary who separated Queensl ...

near the mouth of the

Brisbane River The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Go ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. It is now a petroleum import and storage terminal. It was built by

Amoco Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...

in the 1960s, taken over by BP in 1984 and converted to an import terminal in 2015. It occupies much of the former island. While it operated, it was the largest oil refinery in Queensland.

History

Land reclamation and refinery construction took place during 1963–1965, with the reclamation greatly expanding the original island and joining it to the north bank of the river. When it was constructed, it had a maximum capacity of 25,000 barrels per day, but operated at around 10,000 barrels per day to match Queensland demand at the time. It was built by

and was almost directly across the Brisbane River from

Ampol Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,900 Ampol-branded stations across the country . It also ope ...

Lytton Oil Refinery Lytton Oil Refinery is an oil refinery in the Brisbane suburb of Lytton in Queensland, Australia. It is owned and operated by Ampol. It has a capacity of 6.5 billion litres of crude oil per year. The facility employs 550 people. History Lytton ...

which was built at around the same time. BP bought the refinery from Amoco in 1984. Before and after this acquisition, expansion had increased daily capacity to 80,000 barrels per day by 1996. A further upgrade increased this to over 85,000 barrels per day in 2000, and 102,000 barrels per day by 2014. On 2 April 2014, BP announced that this refinery would be closed mid-2015, its

jetty A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

and

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

will remain operational. The decision was made due to increasing Asian competition and a strong

Australian dollar The Australian dollar (sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Island s ...

References

Oil refineries in Australia Industrial buildings in Queensland 1965 establishments in Australia Industrial buildings completed in 1965 2015 disestablishments in Australia Pinkenba, Queensland {{Queensland-struct-stub