Interactive Guide to UK Refineries

Phillips-Imperial Petroleum Ltd (PIP) is jointly owned by Phillips Company and by Imperial Chemical Industries PLC who has large chemical complexes nearby at Billington and at Wilton.

In September 1966 a second distillation unit came on stream which added 4 million tonnes a year to the existing annual capacity of 1 million tonnes at the PIP Refinery at the North Tees Works of ICI in Cleveland. The 4 million tonne unit was the first major refinery to be built in the North East England and the first in Britain constructed specially to use North African crudes.

The Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority spent £4 million to widen and deepen the Tees to allow 85,000 dwt. tankers to use the River Tees. A jetty was built alongside the refinery to handle vessels of this size.

A Kerosene Sweetening Plant which has a capacity of 330,000 tonnes per year of sweetened kerosene for home heating and general commercial use was completed in the Spring of 1970.

As North Sea oil production began, the North African crudes were replaced by North Sea crudes and the refinery now runs predominantly on North Sea oil. A 24 inch pipeline links the refinery to the Phillips Consortium Ekofisk Oil Terminal at Seal Sands. In 1981, the large distillation unit was uprated from 4 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes per year and the small distillation unit was permanently shut down and has been demolished.

An LPG Recovery Unit was installed and started operating in the spring of 1986, and a Heavy Gas Oil Dewaxing Unit was brought on line at the beginning of 1991 to increase production of high quality diesel fuel. The Dewaxing Unit was completely revamped in 1996 to convert it to an HDS Unit to allow production of Low Sulphur Diesel. A Sulferfox Sulphur Recovery Unit and a new Sour Water Stripper were also installed.

ICI consumes all the naphtha and some fuel oil from the refinery by pipelines, while the remaining products, kerosine, diesel, gas oil and fuel oil are sold by Phillips Petroleum Products Ltd sole agents for PIP) who distribute them by road, rail, sea and pipeline.

The aqueous effluent to the River Tees is separated from oil by oil/water separators, which can also handle the deballasting of tankers, and is also subjected to air floatation and biological treatment in an Effluent Treatment Plant which was extended in 1991 to meet modern high standards of environmental protection.

[Map of UK Refineries]

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