A fascinating visit to Exxon Fawley oil refinery to meet Refinery Manager Simon Downing.

Fawley is the UK’s largest refinery. Situated on Southampton Water, it has a mile-long marine terminal that handles around 2,000 ship movements and 22 million tonnes of crude oil and other products every year. The refinery processes around 270,000 barrels of crude oil a day and provides 20 per cent of UK refinery capacity.

I was interested to hear about the project to create a new £800m diesel plant. Exxon is to build a hydrogen-generating plant, an automotive diesel oil production facility and diesel storage tank enabling the production of ultra low sulphur diesel. The aviation fuel pipeline to Heathrow is also being replaced.