A HUGE OIL REFINERY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 14 October 1922, Page 12

A HUGE OIL REFINERY.

NEAE A BRITISH POET. During the last three years a British oil company has been occupied in completing one of the largest oil refineries in the world. This refinery occupies a site of about 650 acres near a British . port, and it has involved the expendi-, ture of about three million pounds, i From the jetties where the tank steam- ■ ers are unloaded pipe lines are laid to eight tanks, which are capable of holding ten thousand tons of oil. Eleetrie-ally-driven pumps are used to convey the oil from these tanks to storage tanks situated at the refinery about four miles away. The storage tanks have a total capacity of nearly twentyone million gallons. With this up-to-date equipment a ten thousand ton oil tanker can be unloaded in about 12 hours, and can be reloaded with refined oil in 20 hours. In fact, oil arriving at the dock one day can be returned as refined oil on the third day. When work was begun the refinery proved itself capable of dealing with fifteen million gallons of oil per month; but in course of time this figure will be greatly increased. This is the first occasion on which an attempt has been made upon a commercial basis to refine crude oil several thousand miles away from the source of production.