Fawley_2011.pdf

Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical Plant

ExxonMobil is part of Exxon Mobil Corporation, which is the world’s leading publicly-traded petroleum and natural gas company.Based in Texas, USA, the corporation has more than 80,000employees in 80 countries and business interests across the globe.It was created by the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999.

ExxonMobil is the largest gas producer in Europe. We supply about10 per cent of Europe's gas demand and about 10 per cent ofEurope's oil demand. We are also one of Europe's leadingmanufacturers of petrochemical products.

The company has its main UK offices at Leatherhead in Surrey, andoperations in England, Scotland and Wales. The company provideswork for approximately 7,500 employees and some 2,000contractors in the UK.

The Esso, Mobil and ExxonMobil companies in the UK are wholly-owned subsidiaries of ExxonMobil Corporation. ExxonMobil Corporation has numerous affiliates, many with names thatinclude ExxonMobil, Exxon, Esso and Mobil. For convenience and simplicity in this publication,those terms, and the terms corporation, company, our, we and its, are sometimes used asabbreviated references to specific affiliates or affiliate groups.



03Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical Plant

ExxonMobil in the UK and IrelandFawley Refinery and Petrochemical Plant is thelargest in the UK. Opened in 1951, it producesalmost one fifth of the fuel used on the country’s roads.

Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical PlantLocation: Fawley, Hampshire

Opened: 1951

Output: Jet fuel, petrol, diesel, lubricating oil, fuel oil, various chemicals

Annual production capacity:

• Up to 330,000 barrels of crude oil processed each day (15 million tonnes per year)

• Over 850,000 tonnes of chemical products produced each year

Number of workers on site: Over 2,300

LegendFuels distribution terminal

Office

Gas processing plant

Gas terminal

Chemicals manufacturing plant

NGL processing plant

Refinery, chemicals manufacturingplant and marine terminal

Airport operations

LNG terminal

Oil and gas fields

Underground pipeline

Gas pipeline

Co-located service

Aberdeen

Mossmorran

Bacton

PurfleetW. London

Leatherhead

FawleyHythe

Newport

Avonmouth

South Hook

New Ross

Dublin

Birmingham

St Fergus

The first refinery on the site was developed bythe Atlantic Gulf and West Indies PetroleumCompany (AGWI) in 1921. Ever since then the site has played a key role in the area,providing jobs and helping to sustain the local community.

After buying AGWI, Esso, which is now part of ExxonMobil, opened a new refinery on thesite in 1951 and some 60 years later it is stillgoing strong.

Today the refinery processes 330,000 barrelsof crude oil every day, providing 20 per cent ofthe UK’s total refining capacity. Over 2,000ships visit Fawley’s modern marine terminaleach year, delivering more than 22 milliontonnes of crude oil and transporting otherproducts from the site.

Some of the processed oil from the refinery isused as feed for the neighbouring chemicalplant, which manufactures over 850,000tonnes of petrochemical products every year.

You can explore Fawley Refinery online as part of an award-winning virtual tour athttp://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/exxonmobil/index.html

Oiling the wheels of everyday lifeOil and chemicals play a vital role in everyaspect of modern life. If you refuel your vehiclewith petrol or diesel in the South of England,there is a strong chance the fuel wasmanufactured at Fawley. At home, you will be surrounded by products containingmaterials made from crude oil – from carpetsto CDs; from toiletries to trainers; from paint to plastics.

Your vehicle's tyre linings almost certainlycontain man-made rubber from Fawley, and ifyou board a boat, plane or train, it may well beusing our fuel.

04 Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical Plant

Welcome to Fawley Covering 3,250 acres on Southampton Water,Fawley Refinery and Chemical Manufacturing Plantis the largest in the UK, and one of the mostcomplex in Europe.

Did you know ?

At 1.5km long, Fawley’s marineterminal is the largest independentlyowned port of its type in Europe.

Each tanker takes up to two days to unload itscargo, which is then pumped to some of thesite’s 330 storage tanks. Each tank holdsaround 21,000 cubic metres of crude oil,enough to fill eight Olympic swimming pools.The crude oil is treated and converted at therefinery into consumer and industrial productsusing three main processes: separation, conversion and purification.

SeparationTo begin the refining process, the crude oil is separated into its naturally occurringcomponents by applying heat through aprocess called distillation. Primary separation isperformed in a pair of distillation columns, withthe bottom product from the first columnfeeding the next. A furnace in front of thecolumn heats and vaporises the crude oil. Thevapour and liquid mixture is then fed into thebottom section of the tower. The feed sectionis the hottest point in the distillation columnand ranges between 320°C to 370 °C.

Components that are still liquid at such hightemperatures become the column's bottomproduct, which is known as atmosphericresidue. Components that are in vapour formrise up the tower through a series of distillationstages. The temperature decreases as thevapours rise up the column and thecomponents condense.

Because a liquid’s boiling point decreases atlower pressures, the Atmospheric Residue isfurther heated to over 400°C and distilled in asecond column that operates under a vacuum

to maximise liquid recovery. Products from thedistillation column range from gases at the topto very heavy, viscous liquids at the bottom.

ConversionDistillation separates the crude oil intounfinished products. However, the products do not naturally exist in crude in the sameproportions as the product mix that consumersdemand. Essentially, there is too little petroland too much of the heavier fuel oil naturallyoccurring in crude oil, so conversion processesare used to convert low-value fuel oil into high-value gasoline and other lighter products.

All products in the refinery are based on thesame building blocks: carbon and hydrogenchains, which are called hydrocarbons. Thelonger the carbon chain, the heavier theproduct will be. Converting heavierhydrocarbons to lighter hydrocarbons can be compared to cutting a link on a steel chain to make two smaller chains. This is the function of Fawley's Fluidised CatalyticCracking Unit (FCCU).

In addition to breaking chains, there are times when we want to change the form of the chain or put chains together. This is wherethe Powerformer and Isomerisation Units are necessary.

The FCCU uses a catalyst (a material thathelps make a chemical reaction go faster,occur at a lower temperature, or control whichreactions occur) to convert gas-oil into a mix ofLiquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), petrol and diesel.


The production processCrude oil comes to Fawley in tankers from aroundthe world – including the North Sea, Russia, WestAfrica and South America. Fawley typically processesover 20 different types of crude oil each year.

The heaviest material in the refinery is VacuumTower Bottoms (VTB) or residue. It isprocessed in the Residfiner which removesimpurities so that it can be used as additionalfeedstock for the FCCU.

Reforming is the last conversion process. Itincreases the octane number of petrol blendcomponents and generates hydrogen for usein the refinery hydrofiners. The same lengthcarbon chains can have very different octanenumbers based on the shape of the chain.

Straight chains, or paraffins, have a relativelylow octane number, whilst rings, or aromatics,have high octane numbers. At hightemperatures and in the presence ofhydrogen, the catalyst will “reform” paraffinsinto aromatics, hence the name catalyticreforming. Some of the aromatics producedare used at Fawley in the production ofpetrochemicals, such as plastics and fabrics.

PurificationOnce crude oil has been through separationand conversion, the resulting products are

ready for purification - principally sulphurremoval to meet product quality specificationsand environmental standards. This is done byHydrofining, in which the unfinished productsare fed into a heated, high pressure chambercontaining hydrogen and a catalyst.

A further process, sulphur recovery, convertshydrogen sulphide to water and sulphur,which is sold as a refinery byproduct.

Chemical processesSome of the products that come out of therefinery are transferred to the site’s majorpetrochemical plant. We also import butene to the plant, which is stored in seven largepressurised spheres, known as the Seven Sisters.

The raw materials pass through a series of complex processes to create a range of chemicals that have a wide variety ofapplications in the manufacturing industry.

The main products manufactured at theplant are methyl ethyl ketone (MEK),


GASES

NAPHTHA

JET

30°C

370°C

GAS OIL

HEAVY GAS OIL

CRUD

E OI

L

ATMOSPHERIC RESIDUE

Isomerisation

Hydrofining

Atmosphericdistillation

Reforming

OIL

Vacuum

distilla

tion


LPG

Petrol

Jet Fuel

Diesel

Chemical Products

Lubricants

Marine Fuel

End products

Fluid catalytic cracking Scanfiner

ResidfiningLubes

a powerful solvent found in paints andadhesives, and halobutyl rubber used in tyres. The majority of tyres manufactured in Europe contain this type of rubber from Fawley.

Travelling far and wideAbout 80 per cent of Fawley Refinery output ispumped through underground pipelines todistribution terminals as far afield as London,Bristol and Birmingham. In total, 450miles/700km of pipeline transport around 25 million litres of product every day. A further15 per cent of output is taken by sea to ourexport markets, while about 5 per cent travelsby road or rail.

Did you know ?

Heathrow and Gatwick airports are both supplied with jet fuel by Fawley, using directunderground pipelines.

Heath and safetyWe are extremely proud of our health andsafety record at Fawley. Our goal here, and atall our other sites, is to have a workplacewhere nobody gets hurt.

Our award-winning commitment to safety hasbeen recognised many times, both within theindustry, and by independent safety experts.

We continue to explore new and better ways to improve the safety and integrity of our operations.

The environmentThe thriving saltmarsh that borders the site atFawley is a Site of Special Scientific Interest(SSSI) that is home to over 20 species ofbirds. The rest of the site is surrounded by athick screen of some 50,000 established treesand shrubs, which provide a natural woodland habitat.

Water plays an important role in theproduction process at Fawley. Each day, the plant draws up to 1.8 million tonnes of

seawater from Southampton Water, mostly forcooling. When this is returned to the sea afterpurification, it’s often cleaner than when it wasextracted.

To help reduce energy consumption at Fawley,the plant uses a combined heat and powergenerator (Cogen) that burns at twice theefficiency of a conventional power station,cutting energy costs and reducing carbonemissions. The Cogen unit, which is ownedand operated by Esso, is used to produce upto 230 tonnes of steam per hour for use in therefinery, as well as electricity. Any electricitythat is not consumed on site is fed into theNational Grid, so Fawley is a net exporter ofelectrical power.

Two other initiatives are helping to minimisethe site’s environmental impact. A recyclingprogramme has helped to reduce the level ofgeneral waste at the refinery by increasingrecycling to more than 80 per cent. The aim is to increase this still further until no generalwaste from the site needs to be sent to landfill.

Meanwhile, the refinery operates a series ofbiopiles, which use organic substances thatare naturally present in soil to break downwaste from the refinery so that any potentialcontaminants are removed. This approach,which resembles a high technology compostheap, minimises the amount of hazardouswaste produced on site that needs to be sentaway for incineration.


Safety, health and the environment ExxonMobil is committed to ensuring the healthand safety of everyone working at Fawley, or livingin the surrounding area. This commitment extendsto the protection of the local environment for thegood of residents and workers alike.

Did you know ?

Fawley pioneered the introduction of lead-free petrol in the UK.

ExxonMobil encourages employees and theirfamilies to contribute their time, talent andenergy to schools, charities and non-profitorganisations. The company's VolunteerInvolvement Programme (VIP) and GovernorScheme does this by recognising thevoluntary efforts of employees and theirfamilies, and rewarding the organisations theysupport with grants of up to £1,000 per year.Since the programme began in 2002, theFawley representatives have given tens ofthousands of hours of their time to charitiesand local community groups, which havereceived grants under the scheme totallingover half a million pounds.

Many employees at Fawley also take part inan annual Day of Caring, in which they give upa working day to participate in local

community projects, such as clearing theancient pond at Holbury Manor Park,removing undergrowth at the New ForestFront Nature Reserve and laying a new path at Lepe Country Park.

ExxonMobil also makes donations direct tocharities and community groups neighbouringthe Fawley site. The company covered the£13,000 cost of the new, hand-crafted oakfence and gate at All Saints Church, Fawley,for example. Other examples of localdonations, include sponsorship of communityevents, such as Hamble Week; helping to fundthe role of the Coastal Ranger at LepeCountry Park; and the purchase of digitalcameras for the New Forest Agisters, tohighlight the dangers of failing to slow down for animals.


Fawley and the community We have been part of the Waterside communityfor some 60 years. We firmly believe in beingresponsible neighbours and support our local areathrough a well-established programme of grantsand assistance to local charities, schools andcommunity groups.

Did you know ?

The Fawley Refinery was opened by Prime Minister Clement Attlee on 14 September, 1951.

ExxonMobil also operates a Link Schoolsprogramme with 10 schools in the Fawleyneighbourhood. Besides giving cash grants tolocal schools, this initiative helps localteachers to show how the school curriculum isrelevant to working life, while students gain anappreciation of the importance of industry totheir local economy and the skills needed forthe world of work. ExxonMobil worksalongside Learning through Landscapes - anational school grounds charity that believesthat outdoor learning is an essential part of achild's development - and CREATE - a charitythat encourages more sustainable uses ofenergy while reducing carbon emissions.

For more than 12 years the site has alsosponsored the Esso Maths challenge, anannual contest for Year 10 pupils in localschools. The Challenge involves teams ofstudents working together to solve a series ofvery challenging mathematical problems.

The Fawley site also supports Local Authorityinitiatives, such as New Forest District

Council's Brilliance in Business Awards, inwhich ExxonMobil has sponsored theInnovation and Entrepreneurship category for several years. The site also supportsHampshire County Council's HantswebAwards, sponsoring the category for the bestwebsite operated by secondary schools orcolleges in the county.

Local residents are welcome to visit Fawley onguided tours of the site. Each visit starts withan introductory talk, followed by a coach tourof the site.

Our Community Matters newsletter about theFawley site is distributed to local residents sixtimes a year. This gives updates on operationsat the plant and reports on any local projectsinvolving the plant and the people who work there.


Did you know ?

We sponsor the Fawley onlinewebsite at www.fawleyonline.org.uk,which provides the latest news aboutwhat’s going on in the area andelectronic copies of our newsletterCommunity Matters.

Fawley Refinery and Petrochemical PlantEsso RefineryFawleySouthamptonSO45 1TX

Telephone: 023 8089 2511

© Esso UK Limited 2011

This paper is manufactured at mills accreditedwith EMAS and ISO 14001 environmentalcertification and uses pulp derived fromsustainable forests.

Photography credits:Paul Carter, Keith Wood, Dirk Meußling,Janice Rubin, Ian Jackson, Chris Martin,Fawley Refinery staff, Calor Gas Ltd, Williams Photography

Documents

Fawley_2011.pdf