Humber
Refinery Facts
1969 – the completed refinery
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Inspection
of the rotary
cooler on
the calciner
– 1970s
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and smart phones and, of course, planning
maintenance work is now assisted by real time
information.
Biofuels and decarbonisation
“We accept the need to reduce the impact
of human activity on climate change and
are committed to doing our part to reduce
carbon emissions. Our industry produces the
products that society needs to sustain our
modern lifestyles today and in the foreseeable
future – we are part of the solution, not the
problem. However, we accept the need to
reduce our carbon intensity and that will
mean doing things differently, including more
waste recycling, investigating the use of both
‘blue’ and ‘green’ hydrogen, as well as carbon
capture and reuse or storage.
We’ve already made a start at Humber
Refinery, being the first refinery in the UK to
reprocess waste used cooking oil to make
biofuels and in producing coke for lithium-
Ion batteries. This material is essentially pure
carbon and is ‘trapped’ inside the battery so
does not contribute to atmospheric emissions.
It supports the growth in market demand for
electric vehicles. We are also in discussions with
other neighbouring businesses about how we
can work together to reduce emissions in our
area.”
Last month both Darren and Nina
spoke at Energy & Clean Growth in the
Northern Powerhouse. This flagship energy
conference showcasing the achievements and
Continued on page 14
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Crude capacity – 221,000 bpd (barrels per
day)
Nelson complexity factor – 11.6
The site occupies 480 acres in Northern
Lincolnshire and directly employs a
workforce of 1,100 people, with 700
permanent staff and 400 regular
contractors.
The only coking refinery in the UK, the
Humber is one of Europe’s most complex
and cleanest refineries. This enables
the refinery to achieve a Clean Product
Yield of 81% – this is the proportion of
Humber’s products which have a low
sulphur content, including road fuels, non-
road fuels (jet, heating, marine) and low
sulphur chemical feedstocks.
100% of the barrel is converted, meaning
that everything is upgraded from crude
oil into either finished products, chemical
feedstocks or intermediate products which
can be blended into finished products.
A range of products are produced
including petrol, diesel, jet (aviation) fuel,
heating kerosene, LPG, low sulphur marine
fuels and multiple grades of petroleum
coke which are used for various products
and processes, including the manufacture
of electrodes for electric car and
smartphone batteries and the recycling of
waste aluminium and steel. The refinery
also produces various chemical feedstocks
which are used in the manufacture of
everyday products including plastics,
cleaning products and makeup.
As the refinery looks to provide the energy
of the future, the Humber now processes
waste oils with crude oil to reduce the
net carbon dioxide emissions from its
fuels. £1.5 billion has been invested in the
Humber refinery since 2005 to improve
our environmental performance and
position the refinery for the future.
Products are transported to over 20
locations across the UK via ships, pipeline
and trains.
The Humber refinery produces 14%
of the UK’s road transportation fuels*,
although as a company it supplies 16%
of the UK’s road fuels. *This number
includes gasoline, diesel and derv, per the
government statistical categories.
Fuel Oil News | December 2019 13