The Feyzin Refinery (''Raffinerie de Feyzin'') is an

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, ...

in south-east

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, one of six oil refineries in France.

History

Until 1964 most of the petrol in France was refined by British or American companies. A law was passed on 28 February 1963 declaring that at least 20% of the petrol refined in France had to have French involvement, by imposing import quotas. The state-owned l'Union générale des pétroles (UGP) was formed on 19 June 1960. By 1965 France was refining around 70m tonnes of oil per year. Elf was formed on 27 April 1967. Elf merged with ERAP in 1976, then merged with Total in 2003. Elf opened the Grandpuits refinery in 1967. The site has mainly been owned by

Elf Aquitaine Elf Aquitaine is a French brand of oils and other motor products (such as brake fluids) for automobiles and trucks. Elf is a former petroleum company which merged with TotalFina to form "TotalFinaElf". The new company changed its name to Total ...

(Essence et Lubrifiants de France). In 1973, a subsidiary of Elf became

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French Multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. The corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 200 ...

, currently the world's fifth-largest pharmaceutical company.

Construction

Work started April 1963, with the first products made in June 1964. It opened on 15 October 1964, owned by UGP. It could process 6,000 tonnes per day with 2m tonnes of products a year It cost 250m francs, which was 75% funded by the state.

Explosion in January 1966

The

Feyzin disaster The Feyzin disaster occurred in a refinery near the town of Feyzin, 10 kilometres (6 miles) south of Lyon, France, on 4 January 1966. An Liquefied petroleum gas, LPG spill occurred when an operator was draining water from a 1,200m³ pressurised pr ...

was on 4 January 1966. Oil wells and refineries France map-fr

Structure

It is on the

South European Pipeline The South European Pipeline (also known as Lavera–Karlsruhe pipeline; ) is a crude oil pipeline system in France, Switzerland, and Germany. It is built and operated by '' Société du pipeline sud-européen''. The system supplies crude oil to ...

, built in 1962 by the Société du pipeline sud-européen (founded in 1958), with an extension first proposed in April 1970. ''Times'' Friday 10 April 1970, page 24

References

External links