Milford Haven Refinery


Milford Haven Refinery was an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales, United Kingdom. The refinery began operating in 1973 under Amoco's ownership, but in its final years it was owned by Murco Petroleum. The closure of the refinery was announced in November 2014. The site was sold to Puma Energy in 2015 for use as a petroleum storage and distribution terminal.

History

Milford Haven Refinery is situated on a 1,200-acre site near Milford Haven. The refinery began operations in 1973 under Amoco's ownership. A major upgrade was carried out in 1981, during which a catalytic cracker was added. Since then, additional units have been installed, notably a naptha isomerisation unit and a hydrodesulphurisation unit.
In August 1983, a major boilover fire occurred, requiring 150 firemen, 50 fire engines, and two days to extinguish.

Ownership

The refinery was originally owned and operated by Amoco. In 1981 Murco purchased a 30% share of the refinery. Elf bought Amoco's interest in 1990 and Elf was acquired by Total in 2000. In December 2007 Murco purchased Total's 70% interest in the refinery to become the 100% owner. In 2010 Murco expressed a desire to sell the refinery. In April 2014 the company warned that it may have to close the site, and began a consultation process with staff. In June 2014 it was reported that the refinery had been sold to the Klesch Group, safeguarding 400 jobs at the site.
In November the deal fell through and it was announced that the refinery will be converted into a 'storage and distribution facility' with a loss of over 300 jobs. The refinery entered a 'shut-down' period and was decommissioned while the company looked for a new buyer.
In March 2015 the site was acquired by Puma Energy, along with three English inland terminals at Westerleigh, Theale and Bedworth. Puma Energy said it would convert the site into a petroleum storage and distribution terminal.
At 0900 BST Sunday 21 July 2019 the two large stacks were demolished via controlled explosion.

Production

At the time of its closure, the refinery had an annual processing capacity of 5.5 million tonnes. It imported all its feedstocks from the nearby marine terminal, which was connected to the refinery primarily by underground pipeline. Refined products were distributed by road, rail, sea and pipeline to the Midlands and Manchester.
The refining units and their respective capacities were as follows:
Refining unitCapacity barrels/day
Atmospheric Distillation108,000
Vacuum distillation55,000
Fluidised Catalytic cracking37,000
Naphtha hydrotreating18,300
Catalytic reforming18,300
Distillate hydrotreating74,000
Isomerization11,300
Alkylation6,300

1983 fire

In August 1983, an accidental fire broke out at the facility's no. 11 crude storage tank. Containing over 46,000 tonnes of oil, the tank experienced multiple boilovers, which spread the fire across the containment dyke. However, the fire did not extend beyond this area. In total, 150 firefighters and 120 fire appliances were deployed to combat the blaze. Although six firefighters were injured during the two-day incident, there were no fatalities.