The UK’s Fuel Industry

The UK’s Fuel Industry
The UK’s fuel industry is home to some of the world’s biggest fuel companies such as BP and Shell who’s products and services are used around the globe. As such the importation and refining of crude oil and it’s production into petroleum and other petrochemicals are a major part of the fuel industry in the UK.
The investments being made by the UK fuel companies in the research and development of new technologies to improve fuel extraction as well as produce greener fuels are also impacting the fuel industry as a whole.
UK’s crude oil imports

As the UK does not have enough oil reserves of it’s own to be able to sustain our demand we therefore rely on importing it from other countries.
During the end of the 1940′s the UK’s ability to produce it’s own oil products made a quantum leap forward with the development of refining capacities. This subsequently led to the level of crude oil being imported to the UK to skyrocket.
From the 1950′s the main source of these imports were coming from the Middle East, peaking at over 80 million barrels of crude oil in the mid 1970′s. As well as the Middle East the UK was also importing from The Americas, Norway and Africa during this period, though in far smaller quantities.
The oil crisis of 1974 however made a dramatic change in the UK’s crude oil imports. After an oil embargo had been proclaimed by the OAPEC (Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) the levels of crude oil imported by the UK from the Middle east took a sharp nosedive to less than 10 million barrels in a relatively short span of 10 years.
To compensate for the embargo in the Middle East the UK increased it’s reliance on imports from the North Sea area and other crude oil producing countries such as Norway saw a steady increase in trade.
UK Refineries
Demand for petroleum products followed the economic recovery after WWII. The prosperity the economic recovery gave people resulted in increased car ownership within the population and along with a better road network led to the necessity of many of the 9 major refineries we have in the UK today.
Refineries have undergone significant advancements since their introduction in the late 1950′s in order to keep up with the increasingly more complex and greener fuels the UK now demands. Their distribution within the UK is typically coastal or estuarial because of the need to have deep water connection capable of accommodation large oil tankers.
List of UK refineries
Chevron Pembroke Refinery
ConocoPhillips Humber Refinery
ExxonMobil Refinery Fawley
INEOS Grangemouth Refinery
Murco Milford Haven Refinery
Petroplus Coryton Refinery
Petroplus Refining Teesside
Shell Stanlow Manufacturing Complex
Total Lindsey Oil Refinery
UK’s contributions to new fuels