Fawley will help prevent fuel shortage (From Daily Echo)

Fawley refinery will help prevent fuel shortage

12:24pm Wednesday 25th January 2012 in New Forest By Matt Smith, Politics and business reporter

FAWLEY refinery is set to help avert a fuel shortage in the south after the closure of the Coryton oil refinery in Essex.

Fuel sales have been halted at Coryton after its Swiss owner Petroplus filed for bankruptcy, putting 1,000 jobs at risk and stoking fears of fuel shortages.

Analysts said customers would make up the shortfall with deliveries from the Esso Fawley refinery on Southampton water, the other main supplier for the region, or Total’s plant in north Lincoln, as well as looking to imports.

ExxonMobil, the owner of the Fawley refinery, said it was operating at full capacity and its stock levels for London and the South East remained “good”, although a spokesman declined to say whether it was set to commercially benefit from Coryton’s closure.

The Fawley refinery has capacity to process 330,000 barrels of crude oil per day, nearly double Coryton’s 175,000, which supplies 20 per cent of fuel in London and the South East. There are eight refineries in the UK.

ExxonMobil said in a statement: “We can confirm that our Fawley refinery is running at the maximum available throughput.

“Our stock levels for London and the South East remain good and we continue to deliver to forecourts as usual.”

Lib Dem Euro MP Sharon Bowles said: “While fuel supplies from the Esso Fawley refinery in Southampton will make up part of the shortfall, the unhappy saga of Petroplus’ demise is a blow to the South East.

“My sympathy is with the 1,000 workers at the Coryton refinery whose livelihoods are on the line.”

The former BP-owned refinery was operating as usual yesterday but no deliveries of petrol or other products, including bitumen, were leaving the site.

While a buyer for the Coryton refinery is being sought by administrators, petrol retailers said they feared diesel prices will spike. The Government has insisted there will be no disruption to forecourt supplies.

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: “We understand that a process is under way to put in place the necessary commercial arrangements to deliver product into the market. Companies have already made alternative arrangements to ensure adequate supply of products are available while these commercial arrangements are being put in place.”

An AA spokesman said: “The problem comes when one petrol station runs dry and people think it’s happening all over the place.”