Humber Refinery
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The Humber Refinery is a British
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 Killingholme,
North Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Lincolnshire, England. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, it had a population of 167,446. T ...
. It is situated south of the railway line next to the A160; Prax Group's Lindsey Oil Refinery is north of the railway line. It is situated approximately ten miles north west of
Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...
, and processes approximately of
crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...
per day. It is owned by
Phillips 66 The Phillips 66 Company is an American Multinational corporation, multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. Its name, dating back to 1927 as a trademark of the Phillips Petroleum Company, assisted in establishing ...
since the split of
ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in t ...
on 1 May 2012


History

At the time of construction Continental Oil (Conoco) owned the Jet distributor of petrol. Jet was formed in 1953 and was based nearby in Keadby in northern Lincolnshire. In June 1961 Continental Oil bought Jet Petroleum, and its 400 garages. In 1960 Continental had bought the German petrol company Sopi, and its 300 garages. The refinery was first planned in July 1964, and in August 1964 it was expected to cost £15 million, and to be operational by late 1966.


Construction

Construction started in August 1966. It was built for Continental Oil (UK) Ltd. It was originally estimated to cost £25 million but cost twice that. It was built by Power-Gas Corporation, a subsidiary of Sheffield-based Davy-Ashmore who had a £22 million contract. It should have been built by November 1968, and the delay in completion was blamed on bad weather in the summer of 1968, and the 1968/9 winter. Davy-Ashmore lost £12 million on the project. The railway sidings were installed by the Ward Group of Sheffield. 75 miles of steel tubing were made by the Corby steel works for £250,000. In September 1967 there were gales across the country and a man was killed on the site when an engineering shed fell on him. In October 1967 there was a strike, and 120 workers in the Constructional Engineers Union were sacked. In January 1968 a 20-year-old worker from Dublin was killed when a 275-ton coke drum, being raised by a twin jib rig onto a gantry, fell 50 feet to the ground, causing the worker to be crushed by a crane. The £330,000 18-mile underground pipeline from Tetney was made by O'Connor and Davies, part of British Steel Constructions. Six coke silos were built by
Sir Robert McAlpine Sir Robert McAlpine Limited is a family-owned building and civil engineering company based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It carries out engineering and construction in the infrastructure, heritage, commercial, arena and stadium, healthcare, educ ...
in a £200,000 contract. The sub-sea part of the Tetney pipeline was replaced in 2015.


Corporate social responsibility

The Humber Refinery has strong community outreach with recent investments of $500,000 in 2009 to the local school Oasis Academy Immingham to encourage engineering and promote STEM. In 2014 a donation of £240,000 was given to build an Enterprise Suite at Killingholme School helping students to learn employability skills. The Refinery was also founder member of BEEP Business Education and Enterprise Partnership that was established in 2011 to strengthen links between business and education offering a range of activities for schools in the Northern Lincolnshire area. The refinery runs a community liaison group called KAAG (Killingholme Area Advisory Group) they meet monthly and discuss refinery operations and any village concerns. They also organise events for North & South Killingholme, including the free Senior Citizens Christmas Party, Murder Mystery event and sponsor the village children's Christmas party.


Environmental

The refinery has continually had the lowest emissions of any UK refinery. In 2005 the refinery dedicated 120 acres of its land to plant a community woodland. Over 67,500 trees were planted and a competition launched to name it. A student at Killingholme School won and it was called Mayflower Wood, reinforcing the local areas links with the Pilgrim Fathers. The woodland is open to the community with permissive rights of way. The Woodland was opened by Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG GCVO ADC.


Production

It opened in July 1969, producing around . At the time of its opening Britain was using around 83,000 tons of
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
coke a year, most of which was imported, and used in
aluminium smelting Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery. This is an electroly ...
. Much of the crude oil came from Libya, as Continental Oil had large discoveries there, and also in Dubai. The refinery had its own fire brigade. This was used on 8 August 1972 when there was a fire, with 50 feet flames, and a 49-year-old man from Grimsby was killed. In the mid-1970s there was a £45 million expansion of the plant to take its processing output to . At this time, around a third of the oil it processed came from the North Sea. It was the first refinery to receive oil from British National Oil Corporation's ( Britoil) Thistle field on 15 April 1978. In the mid-1990s Conoco invested £500 million in the plant.


Production

Production facilities include an
alkylation Alkylation is a chemical reaction that entails transfer of an alkyl group. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion, or a carbene (or their equivalents). Alkylating agents are reagents for effecting al ...
plant,
rotary kiln A rotary kiln is a pyroprocessing device used to raise materials to a high temperature (calcination) in a continuous process. Materials produced using rotary kilns include: * Cement * Lime * Refractories * Metakaolin * Titanium dioxide * ...
s for
petroleum coke Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke, pet coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refinery, oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as Coke (fuel), cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in parti ...
manufacturing. Crude oil arrives by tanker at Tetney in
East Lindsey East Lindsey is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England. Its council is based in Horncastle and the largest town is Skegness. Other towns include Alford, Lincolnshire, Alford, Burgh le Marsh, Coningsby, L ...
, then stored at the Tetney oil terminal, before being pumped underground to the refinery for refining. of petrol are produced per day, most of which is loaded onto tanker lorries at Immingham Dock. 70% of production is for the UK market, the remainder is exported. 700,000 tonnes of petroleum coke are produced each year. A purpose-built warehouse on the docks stores the petroleum coke before it is shipped out.


Process units

* Thermal cracker * Atmospheric and vacuum distillation * Two delayed coking units * Virgin distillate hydrodesulpuriser * Cracked distillate hydrodeulphuriser * Heavy gas oil desulphuriser * Two catalytic reforming units * Pentane – hexane isomerisation plant * Aromatics extraction plant * Toluene dealkylation plant * Gas recovery plant * Two sulphur recovery units * Tail gas treatment unit (Brought online in 2015) * Fluid catalytic cracker * Propylene – butylene catalytic polymerisation unit * Pressure swing absorber for hydrogen recovery * Cryogenic LPG recovery plant * Propylene recovery and HF alkylation unit


Power station

Since 1 November 2004, power for the Humber Refinery has come from the nearby £300 million
Combined Heat and Power Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to electricity generation, generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Cogeneration is a more efficient use of fuel or heat, because otherwise ...
734 MWe Immingham Power Station, owned by ConocoPhillips. This was improved to produce 1,180 MW from summer 2009. Next-door to the north are Killingholme A power station and Killingholme B power station. The Immingham Combined Heat & Power Plant (ICHP) was sold to VPI in 2013.


2001 Incident

In April 2001, a large
explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume of a given amount of matter associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Explosions may also be generated ...
occurred on the Saturate Gas Plant area of the site. ConocoPhillips was investigated and subsequently fined £895,000 and ordered to pay £218,854 costs by the
Health and Safety Executive The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a British public body responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare. It has additionally adopted a research role into occupational risks in Great B ...
for failing to effectively monitor the degradation of the refineries' pipework. The company pleaded guilty to these charges in court and has since implemented a Risk Based Inspection programme.


See also

* Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal – owned by ConocoPhillips on the Lincolnshire coast near
Mablethorpe Mablethorpe is a seaside town in the civil parish of Mablethorpe and Sutton, in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.OS Explorer map 283:Louth and Mablethorpe: (1:25 000): In 1961 the civil parish had a population of 3,611. On 1 Ap ...


References


External links

* * {{Phillips 66 Oil refineries in the United Kingdom Phillips 66 Buildings and structures in Lincolnshire Industrial buildings completed in 1969 North Sea energy Borough of North Lincolnshire