Refineries .of Great Britain

No. 6 North Tees

In July, 1964, Phillips-Imperial Petroleum Limited was incorporated as a joint company between Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, U.S.A. and Imperial Chemical Industries Limited. This association between a major chemical company and a major oil company emphasizes the increasing extent to which crude oil is being used as a basic raw material for sophisticated end products including synthetic fibres, fertilizers and plastics. It represented the first such joint venture in the United Kingdom between an American oil company and a British chemical company.

In April 1965, Phillips-Imperial Petroleum purchased from ICI an existing 1 million ton/year crude oil distillation unit on the North bank o'f the River Tees and by autumn 1966 a second crude oil distillation unit of 4 million ton/year capacity had been designed, built and put on stream.

Crude oil for the refinery comes from North Africa and is supplied by Phillips Petroleum Company. Refinery products such as kerosene, diesel fuel, gas oil and fuel oil are sold throughout the U.K. as well as being exported, by Phillips Petroleum Products Limited which acts as selling agent for P.I.P. All the naptha is sold to ICI for use ·in petroleum chemical operations.

The refinery and jetties are situated on reclaimed land adjacent to Seal Sands near the mouth of the Tees, only a few miles from the ICI factories at Billingham and Wilton. Close to the refinery ICI has built a large Aromatics Plant which is now being greatly increased in size. The whole new complex is known as North Tees Works. The Refinery The crude unit, which is located alongside the original 1 ton/year unit, is designed to process up to 4 mIllIon ton/year of North African crude to produce two of naptha feedstock for ICI, as well as kerosene, lesel fuel, gas oil and oil fuel. The storage and distribution :yste.ms for the crude feed and products of the two units re Integrated, but the larger crude unit employs side :eboilers (rather than steam stripping) to raise the sh POInt on the heavy naptha, kerosene and gas oil stream, thus ensuring completely dry products.

. The latest addition to the refinery is a kerosene sweetenIng. plant which will produce up to 330,000 ton/year of PUrIfied use. kerosene for home heating and general commercial

Storage for the refinery is provided by conventional overground. tankage, but in addition a substantial quantity of crude 011 and products can be stored in the cavities developed from worked-out salt wells.

. Both refinery units produce their own steam. Electricity IS purchased from the North Eastern Electricity Board and water is drawn from the Tees Valley and Cleveland Water Board's mains.

The latest type of oil/water separators are included as part of the site services, together with means for the chemical treatment of aqueous effluents from the refinery before discharge into the Tees. The oil/water separator system is also designed to handle the de-ballasting of tankers so that only clean water is discharged to the river, recovered oil being fed back to the refinery for processing.

Compared with many other crudes, those from North Africa have a very low sulphur content and so yield high quality fuels which ·cause much less atmospheric pollution when burned. Low sulphur fuels also allow of lower stack temperatures without dangers of corrosion. The refinery burns its own waste gas, and very low sulphur fuel oil, thus minimising its contribution to local atmospheric poHution.

The P.I.P. refinery does not produce petrol directly, but petrol is a co-product of ICI's petroleum chemical operations using naptha from the refinery.

There is a considerable area of land available at the site for expansion of the refinery's activities and possible new developments are under review.

The Jetty As part of the 1966 expansion, a new jetty, No. 4 was designed and built to handle tankers ranging from 20,000 to 85,000dwt. Crude oil can be discharged from tankships at rates up to 6,000 ton/hr and products can be loaded at rates up to 2,000 ton/hr. The jetty services comprise bunkering and de-ballasting facilities, together with drinking water supplies and telephone service connections. A pnuematically operated system for handling hoses ·is installed.

In dredging out the berth for this new jetty, to provide access and accommodation for the large tankers, it was necessary to use explosives to remove an underwater outcrop of anhydrite. Great <:are was needed in this operation as it took place immediately above the Billingham to Wilton pipe tunnel and the rock cover to remain over the tunnel was only 13 feet.

This new jetty forms part of a jetty complex on the North Bank of the Tees at North Tees Works. The other jetties, owned by ICI, are designed to handle a range of smaller vessels. Phillips-Imperial Petroleum has the use of these jetties and in return provides bunkering facilities.

During 1968 eighty-five large tankships were loaded or discharged at No. 4 Jetty while one hundred and sixty nine smaller tankships were loaded with P.I.P. products at the ICI jetties. Thus P.I.P's business brought two hundred and fifty four ships, varying in size from 1,000 dwt to 85,000 dwt, into the Tees in that year. A proportion of the products transported by sea was being exported to overseas markets, while the remainder was being sent to seaport terminals in the U.K. for distribution to consumers.