25-592: The Kwinana Oil Refinery was sited on the shore of Cockburn Sound at the suburb of Kwinana Beach , near Fremantle , Western Australia . Built by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and completed in 1955, it was the largest oil refinery in Australia, with a capacity of 21.9 million litres per day (138,000 bbl/d). It was closed by BP in March 2021 to be converted to an import-only terminal. In March 1952,
50-662: A diameter of 36.5 metres (120 ft) on Mount Brown in Henderson , due for completion in August and July respectively and on to the refinery site for use during construction. Also in late May, A. E. Mason arrived to become the head of the project in Western Australia for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Work also proceeded on soil surveys, hydrographic surveys and pile tests at the project site. Tenders were called for
75-654: A reasonable price. Resumption of land would take place up until 31 December 1953 and possibly beyond. Both bills passed the Legislative Council on 14 March 1952 and were sent to Governor Charles Gairdner for the Royal assent . At a meeting held in Canberra with Interior Minister Kent Hughes , the Federal Government agreed on 18 March 1952 to sell back 384 hectares (949 acres) it had owned since its purchase in 1916 to
100-411: A requirement that the company pay at least 6% of the costs of dredging Cockburn Sound , estimated at between £4 and £6 million, with the state meeting the company's requirements for the dredge; supply of 12,000 kilowatts of electricity; cement to be imported by the company; sale of 30 hectares (75 acres) of land to the south of the refinery for recreation and amenities; provision of water and sewerage to
125-546: A result of algal blooms through poor local water quality. Reports from 2010 suggest the monitoring of pollutants was not adequate, using degradation of sea-grass since 2005 as a key indicator. Media coverage in December 2016 indicates the leaking of firefighting chemicals from the local defence base at Garden Island could be a factor, however the report was only made available in September 2016. Prior official reports indicate
150-541: A shoal further to the south, causing extensive damage. The sandbank extends about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from the coast in a west and north-west direction, and is up to 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. It covers an area of 1,205 hectares (2,980 acres). Two approximately 15-metre-deep (49 ft) man-made shipping channels, built for the Fremantle Port Authority to carry cargo and other deep water ships to and from Gage Roads through to Cockburn Sound, divide
175-522: Is an inlet of the Indian Ocean on the coast of Western Australia . It extends from the south of the mouth of the Swan River at Fremantle for about 25 kilometres (16 mi) to Point Peron near Rockingham . The total area of the sound is about 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi). It is bounded on the east by the mainland council areas of Fremantle , Cockburn , Kwinana and Rockingham , on
200-715: The Government of Western Australia and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company signed a £40 million agreement to build the Kwinana Oil Refinery. The agreement was then sent to parliament for reading as two bills on 6 March; one, the Oil Refinery (Kwinana) Industry Bill , to ratify the agreement and the second, the Industrial Development (Kwinana Area) Bill , to acquire the land in Kwinana. Details in this final agreement included
225-611: The WA State Government at £25 per hectare (£10/acre). Hughes also agreed to return Commonwealth land, from Woodman Point down to Kwinana, to the state for use as industrial land. Concerned about the impact of the project on the disruption to sources of labour in WA, Minister for Works David Brand discussed immigration policy to make up the shortfall especially when it came to skilled workers. Discussion also took place as to Australian import restrictions when it came to material required for
250-455: The construction and final building; supply of potable water – 0.91 million litres (240 thousand US gallons) a day, rising to 14 million litres (3.6 million US gallons) a day; sale of land at £200 per hectare (£80/acre); federal government assistance in obtaining migrant labour for the project. The state government undertook to build 1,000 rental homes within three years, with water, septic tanks, fences and roads to
275-560: The dredging of Cockburn Sound over three or four years, dredging through two banks: a 4.4-kilometre (2.7 mi) channel through the Success Bank and a 2.8-kilometre (1.7 mi) channel through the Parmelia Bank . Investigations took place in May 1952 to extend the existing railway line 9.8 kilometres (6.1 mi) from Woodman Point and Coogee through to the refinery site. But by July 1952,
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#1732863134629300-440: The enterprise to an oil import terminal to operate in 2022. The closure removed over one fifth of Australia's refining capacity, leaving three operating refineries. Kwinana supplied about 70% of Western Australia's fuel needs. The refinery staffing of 650 would be reduced to 60. The cost of making the change was estimated at up to $ 1 billion including staff redundancies, inventory write-downs and decommissioning provisions. Citing
325-640: The loss of 600 refinery jobs in Western Australia and a further 300 from the pending closure of ExxonMobil Australia 's Altona Refinery in Victoria, Kwinana's federal parliamentarian Madeleine King criticised Prime Minister Scott Morrison for not including these operations in a $ 2 billion bailout package for Australia's two remaining fuel refineries; Viva Energy 's Geelong Oil Refinery and Ampol 's Lytton Oil Refinery in Brisbane , saying: The Prime Minister declared ... that maintaining Australia's refining capacity
350-740: The new channels into Cockburn Sound on 11 January. The first oil was pumped from the storage tanks into the distillation furnace on 2 February 1955 and the refinery was online. Petrol was pumped for the first time on 23 March 1955 from the refinery to the Commonwealth Oil Refineries depot in North Fremantle . The refinery was officially opened on 25 October 1955 by the Governor-General Sir William Slim . After 65 years' operation, citing growing lack of commercial viability, BP ceased refining in 2021, aiming at conversion of
375-505: The project was officially announced by Premier Ross McLarty on 9 October 1952. Tenders for the 1,000 new rental houses were sent out in November 1952 for delivery in three years with five tenders chosen in mid-December to begin work mid-January 1953. The refinery's twelve administrative buildings were constructed between May and December 1954. On 8 January 1955, the first oil tanker British Crusader arrived at Gage Roads and passed through
400-411: The railway plan was modified with an extension line from a future Welshpool railway line through Bibra Lake to the proposed Coogee line to Kwinana. The main water supply for the project would come through a 760-millimetre (30 in) trunk line from Armadale to a hill sited west of Lake Thompson where a 91-million-litre (24-million-US-gallon) reservoir would be built from late 1952 with a pipeline to
425-580: The refinery by mid-1955. On the 24 September 1952, Anglo-Iranian Oil announced that Kelloggs International and Costain - John Brown & Company would build the refinery and its facilities. In late September 1952, the last obstacle preventing the refinery project proceeding, the Commonwealth Oil Refineries , equally owned by the Commonwealth and Anglo-Iranian and responsible for marketing refined products in Australia, would be sold so that it
450-463: The refinery's construction, with the company willing to use local supplies but not to the detriment of the state's requirements for construction materials in other local projects. In May 1952, the State government authorised the commencement of a 19-kilometre (12 mi), 26-centimetre (10 in) steel water pipeline from Melville reservoir to a 4.5-megalitre (1-million-imperial-gallon) storage tank with
475-482: The refinery. Included were details of three pipelines to be built, one to Fremantle, a second from Fremantle to Perth and a third from Kwinana to Perth. The state also provided a guarantee against future socialisation and waived charges for pilotage of ships which were being used on company business. In the second bill, land for future industry was proposed and would stretch from Robbs Jetty south towards Rockingham Townsite and east to Jandakot , with it acquired at
500-400: The sandbar. The name is Success Channel. Success Bank is covered extensively with the seagrasses Posidonia and Amphibolis griffithii . Parmelia Bank is a slightly smaller bank and runs approximately parallel to Success Bank, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) further south extending from Woodman Point , almost to Carnac Island . The Success and Parmelia Banks were formed during
525-513: The water quality was improving. However, there is doubt towards the scope of the report, as it does not include factors such as thermal stress from increased water temperature and oxygen stress as a result of climate change and localised desalination. Success Bank Success Bank is a sandbank to the north of Cockburn Sound , off Fremantle, Western Australia within the limits of the Fremantle Outer Harbour . The bank lies to
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#1732863134629550-543: The west by Garden Island and Carnac Island , and includes several rocky outcrops and reefs. Gage Roads lies to the north. The sound was named in 1827 by Captain James Stirling , probably after Admiral Sir George Cockburn . The Perth Seawater Desalination Plant can be found here. Several media reports have been made on pollution of the water in Cockburn Sound, where in late 2015 an estimated 2,100 fish died as
575-464: The west of Owen Anchorage . It is about 5 metres (16 ft) deep and is just to the south of the main shipping channel of Gage Roads . Success Bank was named by Captain James Stirling after his ship HMS Success , which was used for a preliminary exploration of the Swan River region in 1827. On 28 November 1829, Success revisited Western Australia and ran aground on Carnac Reef ,
600-557: Was a matter of economic and national security. But in choosing to back refining capacity only in Brisbane and Geelong, Mr Morrison is choosing to maintain the economic and national security of just the east coast. The refinery received a Historic Engineering Marker from Engineers Australia as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program . [REDACTED] Media related to Kwinana Oil Refinery at Wikimedia Commons Cockburn Sound Cockburn Sound ( Nyungar : Derbal Nara )
625-613: Was fully owned by the latter. With this news, the dredging tender was announced on 1 October 1952 by Minister for Works David Brand with the initial contract awarded for £2 million to a Dutch company, Hollandse Aanneming Maatskappy, and would see a 152-metre-wide (499 ft), 11.5-metre-deep (38 ft) channel created through the two banks with 5.4 million cubic metres (7 million cubic yards) of spoil removed, allowing 41,000-tonne (40,000-long-ton) ships to enter Cockburn Sound. The spoil would be deposited at three sites, Cockburn Sound, Owen Anchorage and Gage Roads . Commencement of
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