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Report - - Coryton Oil Refinery, Coryton, Essex - January 2016 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Coryton Oil Refinery, Coryton, Essex - January 2016

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slayaaaa

Moderator
Moderator
Coryton Oil Refinery

Bored one night of the week I received an over excited message from Maniac reminding me of a place the world had forgotten to check. I had once a while ago and just seemed a bit too lively and well secure to attempt. This time round we managed in after a 2 hour stint with some brambles, swamps, a few fences including one "electrified" and a couple cameras. Finally got a good look at something everyone has neglected.
We had no idea they were demolishing it and we didn't realize how much had gone until got down from the gas tower and wandered South to be meet with a fallen chimney, a big digger and pile of mangled pipage and steel re bar. It sounded live from the outside but a closer look revealed that it was completely shut down. It looked immaculate for a good time until we saw the devastation behind.

We managed a fair amount of the site, gas tower, covered a bit of ground, control room, freight yard and the gas storage section. But there is so so much more to see, so come down and have a look.
The pictures aren't great at all but there on a report to show y'all it's there. :D

Security does roll round in a pick up of sorts and the roads are used relatively frequently by the live sections either side of the site but easily avoided.

NP because I'm not done with this yet and hopefully a few others can see it! Hasn't got long left.

Enjoy :)

History


Coryton Refinery was an oil refinery in Essex, England, on the estuary of the River Thames some 28 miles (45 km) from the centre of London, between Shell Haven Creek and Hole Haven Creek, which separates Canvey Island from the mainland.

It was a part of the Port of London and was the last of the three major refineries on the Thames Estuary to remain in operation. Output was delivered by road, sea and rail, and it was linked to Stanlow Refinery in North West England by the UK Oil P
ipeline (UKOP). There is a 753 MW gas-fired power station, opened in 2002 and run by Coryton Energy Co Ltd, part of Intergen.

Their main operating units were:​
  • Distillation unit​
  • Vacuum distillation​
  • Fluid catalytic cracker​
  • Catalytic reformer​
  • Hydro desulphurisation units​
  • Gas recovery unit​
  • Isomerisation unit​
  • Alkylation unit​
Statistics

Crude oil was received from tankers of up to 250,000 tonnes deadweight (DWT). In 2005 BP acquired a fleet of three new 32 m tugs for towing, mooring, fire-fighting and pollution control at the plant. They ware named 'Corringham', 'Stanford' and 'Castle Point' after nearby locations.
Refining capacity was 11 million tonnes per year or 220,000 bbl/day.

Product output:​

  • Petrol 3.6 million tonnes​
  • Diesel 2.7 million tonnes​
  • Kerosene/jet fuel 1.1 million tonnes​
  • LPG 0.2 million tonnes​
  • Fuel oil 1.7 million tonnes​
  • Bitumen 0.3 million tonnes​
In 2007 the plant was sold by BP to Petroplus for £714.6m (around $1.4 billion).

On 24 January 2012 it was announced that Petroplus had filed for bankruptcy, putting the refinery's future into doubt. To alleviate a possible surge in fuel prices, oil supplies were ordered from other refineries in the UK, such as the Stanlow Refinery via the UK oil pipeline network. Shipments from Coryton resumed on 26 January following agreements signed by the administrators.

PwC (Administration)
On 28 May 2012 it was announced that the refinery would close due to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrators, having failed to find a buyer. Igor Yusufov's Energy Investment Fund was the only potential bidder ready to keep the refinery operating. On 28th Feb 2013 the gas supply to the site was shut off. Around twelve hours later the flare went out, bringing to an end over 60 years of operations at the refinery.

Deepwater fuel import terminal
The refinery will be turned into a diesel import terminal by Vopak, Shell and Greenergy. It will initially have a capacity of 500,000 cubic metres (18,000,000 cu ft).​



Pictures

Not great but here's "part 1" of mine I suppose, hopefully you'll see some more from me and hopefully a few others.

Few externals

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Gas tower thingy

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Control room

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We had a lot of rain so the pics are very soft, poor camera...
Up this next

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It's big! :S

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A live section

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Control room itself was very disappointing, but still cool to see.

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Maniac Messing about

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Upstairs was just servers and kitchen, not great.

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That's all I've got so far, I mean this place is big... You'd need a couple days to check the lot. Luckily I have the time so I should be able to get back. Cheers for looking!

PIPES​
 

The Lone Ranger

Safety is paramount!
Staff member
Moderator
Very, very nice and some cracking views too :thumb

Great to see as I've been up most the high stuff here in the past, I put the gantry on the right hand chimney in the first photo. You have captured the place well and good effort on getting up high too.
 

darbians

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Nice one. Been wandering about this for a while. Thought it be tight as due to the port thing next door too.
 

Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
The world minus Speed forgot to check you mean :) Glad someone has done it justice. I checked it several times, back last April they looked like they were gearing up to start demo but I can honestly say i've just not had the time! Was thinking it would disappear without a trace as no one seemed interested..
 

zombizza

Sore Knee
Regular User
Very nice. I was hoping to see what this had to offer. We'll done. I went there about 3 times over their last year but it was far too active at their time. Full of workers roaming out in the open.
Looks lovely
 

Maniac

rebmeM LD82
Regular User
Nice one slayaaaaaaaaaaaaaa pics are better than mine. Considering how cold, windy and rainy it was you done well.

Seriously, this place is massive, more pipes than pyestock and there's so much more to it than we saw. It is mid demo thou, want to see it, be quick!
 

Speed

Got Epic Slow?
Regular User
Question is, is there anything other than pipes?? I was hoping there may be some dated control rooms or something like that.. The place has existed since the 1950s in some form or another but if everything is modern i can't say i'll be losing sleep over missing it. Shell Haven on the other hand, i have photos of what they demolished there and it had some mind blowing control rooms.. :(
 

slayaaaa

Moderator
Moderator
Question is, is there anything other than pipes?? I was hoping there may be some dated control rooms or something like that.. The place has existed since the 1950s in some form or another but if everything is modern i can't say i'll be losing sleep over missing it. Shell Haven on the other hand, i have photos of what they demolished there and it had some mind blowing control rooms.. :(

To be fair you're right. Mostly just pipes, until you get to the power station, few more interesting features there as we found out. Will get a few pictures up within the next day or so.

Cheers for the comments guys :)
 

slayaaaa

Moderator
Moderator
Bit of an update on this place, expecting it to all be gone I thought I'd give it another visit just in case with Mockney Reject plus a few pics from some other visits here. Nothing particularly epic but still interesting.

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The building ahead looked as though it would give us something a little more original, maybe some interesting control room features and having been looking at the place for so long i noticed a canteen, works, maintenance buildings that all could've provided something worth seeing. However they'd been stripped and modernized. Some signs remained, small engine rooms and something indicating an old engineers library but unfortunately everything had been moved to the new control room built in 1997 with bomb proof doors and state of the art facilities.

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Works and maintenance were a bit risky but I can't imagine I'll be able to get back here at the right time to see them and the chances that they're gonna be un-touched when they modernized the canteen/technical building/control room is slim.​
 
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