Humber Refinery
Encyclopedia
The Humber Refinery is a British
oil refinery
in South Killingholme
, North Lincolnshire
. It is situated south of the railway line next to the A160; Total
's Lindsey Oil Refinery
is north of the railway line.
It is situated approximately ten miles north west of Grimsby
, and processes approximately 221000 barrels (35,136.2 m³) of crude oil per day. It is owned by ConocoPhillips
. ConocoPhillips is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and is the largest refiner of oil in the USA.
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.
. 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 built 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 Ltd in a £200,000 contract.
. 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 130000 oilbbl/d. 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.
plant, the UK's only premium petroleum coke
(for smelting steel) processing facility including three calcination
rotary tunnels. 700,000 tonnes of petroleum coke
are produced each year. 70% of the refined oil is for UK use, the rest is exported to mainland Europe
. It is the world's largest producer of specialty graphite cokes. It is the largest anode coke producer in Europe.
Crude oil arrives by tanker at Tetney
in East Lindsey
, then stored at the Tetney oil terminal, before being pumped underground to the refinery for refining.
130000 barrels (20,668,348.4 l) of petrol are produced per day, most of which is loaded onto tanker lorries at Immingham Dock. A purpose-built warehouse on the docks stores the petroleum coke before it is shipped out.
The refinery's non-destructive testing is carried out by Oceaneering.
(owned by Total
), has come from the nearby £300 million 734MWe CHP
Immingham Power Station
, owned by ConocoPhillips. This was improved to produce 1,180 MW from summer 2009. Next-door to the north is also the Killingholme Power Station
.
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
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.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
oil refinery
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
in South Killingholme
South Killingholme
South Killingholme is a village in North Lincolnshire, England. It is divided by the A160 dual carriageway. Considerably larger than its neighbour, North Killingholme, together they make up the area of Killingholme...
, North Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber in England. For ceremonial purposes it is part of Lincolnshire....
. It is situated south of the railway line next to the A160; Total
Total S.A.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...
's Lindsey Oil Refinery
Lindsey Oil Refinery
Lindsey Oil Refinery is a Total owned oil refinery on Eastfield Road in North Killingholme, North Lincolnshire, England. It lies immediately north of the Humber Refinery owned by rival oil company ConocoPhillips, being north of the railway line to Immingham Docks. The former RAF North Killingholme...
is north of the railway line.
It is situated approximately ten miles north west of Grimsby
Grimsby
Grimsby is a seaport on the Humber Estuary in Lincolnshire, England. It has been the administrative centre of the unitary authority area of North East Lincolnshire since 1996...
, and processes approximately 221000 barrels (35,136.2 m³) of crude oil per day. It is owned by ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational energy corporation with its headquarters located in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas in the United States...
. ConocoPhillips is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and is the largest refiner of oil in the USA.
History
At the time of construction Continental Oil (Conoco) owned the JetJet (brand)
Jet is the filling station brand of ConocoPhillips, used in Europe.Jet filling stations are located in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Thailand and the United Kingdom....
distributor of petrol. Jet was formed in 1953 and was based nearby in Keadby
Keadby
Keadby is a small village lying just off the A18, west of Scunthorpe, in North Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the West bank of the River Trent. It is pronounced "Kidby"....
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 (U.K.) Ltd, based in Ponca City, OklahomaPonca City, Oklahoma
Ponca City is a small city in Kay and Osage counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, which was named after the Ponca Tribe. Located in north central Oklahoma, it lies approximately south of the Kansas border, and approximately east of Interstate 35. 25,919 people called Ponca City home at the...
. 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 built 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
Tetney
Tetney is a small village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, just west of the Prime Meridian.-Geography and amenities:The village is on the A1031 road, the Cleethorpes-Mablethorpe road, just south of Cleethorpes and Humberston...
was made by O'Connor and Davies, part of British Steel Constructions. Six coke silos were built by Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd in a £200,000 contract.
Production
It opened in July 1969, producing around 80000 oilbbl/d. At the time of its opening Britain was using around 83,000 tons of petroleum coke a year, most of which was imported, and used in aluminium smeltingAluminium 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....
. 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 130000 oilbbl/d. 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
Britoil
Britoil was originally a privatised British oil company operating in the North Sea. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.-History:...
) Thistle field on 15 April 1978.
In the mid-1990s Conoco invested £500 million in the plant.
Operations
The notable areas of operation include an alkylationAlkylation
Alkylation is the transfer of an alkyl group from one molecule to another. The alkyl group may be transferred as an alkyl carbocation, a free radical, a carbanion or a carbene . Alkylating agents are widely used in chemistry because the alkyl group is probably the most common group encountered in...
plant, the UK's only premium petroleum coke
Petroleum coke
Petroleum coke is a carbonaceous solid derived from oil refinery coker units or other cracking processes. Other coke has traditionally been derived from coal....
(for smelting steel) processing facility including three calcination
Calcination
Calcination is a thermal treatment process applied to ores and other solid materials to bring about a thermal decomposition, phase transition, or removal of a volatile fraction. The calcination process normally takes place at temperatures below the melting point of the product materials...
rotary tunnels. 700,000 tonnes of petroleum coke
Coke (fuel)
Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...
are produced each year. 70% of the refined oil is for UK use, the rest is exported to mainland Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. It is the world's largest producer of specialty graphite cokes. It is the largest anode coke producer in Europe.
Crude oil arrives by tanker at Tetney
Tetney
Tetney is a small village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, just west of the Prime Meridian.-Geography and amenities:The village is on the A1031 road, the Cleethorpes-Mablethorpe road, just south of Cleethorpes and Humberston...
in East Lindsey
East Lindsey
East Lindsey is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England. The council is based in Manby near Louth, and other major settlements in the district include Alford, Spilsby, Mablethorpe, Skegness, Horncastle and Chapel St Leonards....
, then stored at the Tetney oil terminal, before being pumped underground to the refinery for refining.
130000 barrels (20,668,348.4 l) of petrol are produced per day, most of which is loaded onto tanker lorries at Immingham Dock. A purpose-built warehouse on the docks stores the petroleum coke before it is shipped out.
The refinery's non-destructive testing is carried out by Oceaneering.
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
- Fluid catalytic cracker
- Propylene - butylene catalytic polymerisation unit
- Pressure swing absorber for hydrogen recovery
- Cryogenic LPG recovery plant
- Propylene recovery and HF alklation unit
Power station
Since November 1 2004, power for both the Humber and Lindsey Oil RefineryLindsey Oil Refinery
Lindsey Oil Refinery is a Total owned oil refinery on Eastfield Road in North Killingholme, North Lincolnshire, England. It lies immediately north of the Humber Refinery owned by rival oil company ConocoPhillips, being north of the railway line to Immingham Docks. The former RAF North Killingholme...
(owned by Total
Total S.A.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...
), has come from the nearby £300 million 734MWe CHP
Cogeneration
Cogeneration is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat....
Immingham Power Station
Immingham Power Station
Immingham Combined Heat and Power Plant is a gas-fired CHP power station in North Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the south bank of the Humber, north of the town of Immingham, from which it takes its name. Its generating capacity of 730 megawatts makes it Europe's largest CHP plant...
, owned by ConocoPhillips. This was improved to produce 1,180 MW from summer 2009. Next-door to the north is also the Killingholme Power Station
Killingholme Power Station
Killingholme Power Station is the name given to two CCGT natural gas power stations near to East Halton and North Killingholme in North Lincolnshire; Killigholme B opened in 1993 and is owned by E.ON UK and Killingholme A opened in 1994 and is owned by Centrica.-900 MW plant:The E.ON UK...
.
2001 explosion
In April 2001, a large explosionExplosion
An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...
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
Health and Safety Executive
The Health and Safety Executive is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom. It is the body responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in England and Wales and Scotland...
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
Risk based inspection
Risk Based Inspection is a risk based approach to prioritizing and planning inspection used in engineering industries, and predominant in the oil and gas industries. This type of inspection planning analyses the probability and consequence of failure of an asset to calculate its risk of failure...
programme.
See also
- South KillingholmeSouth KillingholmeSouth Killingholme is a village in North Lincolnshire, England. It is divided by the A160 dual carriageway. Considerably larger than its neighbour, North Killingholme, together they make up the area of Killingholme...
- Greater GrimsbyGreater GrimsbyThe North East Lincolnshire towns of Grimsby, Immingham and Cleethorpes, form the economic area known as Greater Grimsby. The main sectors of the Greater Grimsby economy are food and drink; ports and logistics; renewable energy; chemicals and process industries and digital media.- Europe’s food...
- Theddlethorpe Gas TerminalTheddlethorpe Gas TerminalTheddlethorpe Gas Terminal is a large gas terminal on the Lincolnshire coast on Mablethorpe Road at Theddlethorpe St Helen close to Mablethorpe in East Lindsey in England. It is just off the A1031 and next door to a holiday camp and ....
- owned by ConocoPhillips on the Lincolnshire coast near MablethorpeMablethorpeMablethorpe is a small seaside town in East Lindsey on the coast of Lincolnshire, England.-Geography:Several small caravan parks exist around Mablethorpe. The town is administered with Sutton-on-Sea and Trusthorpe, as the civil parish of Mablethorpe and Sutton... - Whitegate Refinery - ConocoPhillips refinery in Ireland - the only oil refinery in Ireland at Whitegate, County CorkWhitegate, County CorkWhitegate is a small village on the eastern shore of Cork Harbour in County Cork, Ireland. It is within the townland of Ballincarroonig or Ballincarroony. It was once a busy fishing port and well known for its lace-making. In the 20th century Ireland's only Oil Refinery was built on Corkbeg...
- MiRO Refinery - ConocoPhillips refinery on the River Rhine in KarlsruheKarlsruheThe City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
External links
- ConocoPhillips worldwide page
- ConocoPhillips UK page
- UK Petroleum Industry Association page
- Institute of Petroleum page
- Hydrocarbons Technology page
- HSE report into April 2001 accident