Fears for Chevron’s Pembroke refinery as company restructuring announced (From Western Telegraph)

Oh dear - twitchy bum time for a few. Lets hope they start by axing a few Chiefs before they start on the lowly Indians.

Would it be a bad thing if they all pulled up sticks, and left ?
How many full time jobs does the Petrochemical industry provide in Pembrokeshire, and at what cost to the environment, and to the general public’s health.
It is debatable if Pembrokeshire was blessed or blighted by the Oil Industry from the 1960s. The areas around Milford Haven were chosen because of the river Cleddau’s, naturally deep estuary, was capable of accommodating the large tankers of that time. Esso refinery started the Oil invasion in the 1960s, building a refinery out at South Hook later to become today’s South Hook LNG plant. Esso was soon followed by Texaco building then operating a refinery in Pembroke in 1964. Gulf was hot on the heels of Texaco building a refinery in Waterston around 1968. Gulf continued until 1998 when it was bought and used as a tank farm, by the French oil company Petro Plus. Today this site is now used as a storage tank farm by Dragon LNG. Amoco was the last refinery to be built in 1973, later to be taken over by Elf and then again by Murco, which it is today. Other reasons why the Oil Industry chose the Milford Haven area to build their refineries were Pembrokeshire has high unemployment, so it was a source of cheap grateful labour. Also the remote positioning, and small population of Pembrokeshire, was it a damage limitation decision for casualties, in the event of a catastrophe.
There have already been a number of reported disasters on various refinery sites. Such as in July 1994, Texaco had a massive explosion, when 20,000 tonnes of flammable Hydrocarbons exploded causing massive damage to the site. Luckily this accident happened on a Sunday, when most of the refinery personnel, were not on site. If it had happened on a normal working day the resulting injuries do not bare thinking about. Pembrokeshire was criminally polluted and its wild life killed when the Sea Empress an oil tanker, became grounded off the coast Milford Haven. Bad decisions and in actions taken for financial reasons, made this accident, into a Disaster for the area. The ship holed and 72,000 tonnes of North Sea light crude oil was deposited on to Pembrokeshire’s beautiful coastline, destroying thousands of seabirds, marine life and covering the rocks and sandy beaches with this stinking soup of Satan. On august 30th 1983 the Elf refinery was the scene of a massive tank fire. A massive oil tank accidentally ignited and continued to dangoursly burn for over 12 hours. This again could have been another disaster for the county.
The new kids on the block arrived with the 2 LNG plants at Southhook and Waterston. The 2 terminals were built to accommodate LNG (liquid natural gas); there was a large contingent against the building and operations of these terminals. One supporter of an LNG plant in the US is the Mayor of Everett John F Hanlon. He has a terminal 600 yards from his home. This Terminal is the longest operating LNG terminal in the US, it opened in 1971. Mayor Hanlon states he has no concerns about LNG safety. I have seen is photograph, he does not look like much of a thinker. With the number of oil refineries around the Milford Haven area many local residents, have concerns on the safety of these refineries. Their concerns seem quite justified, when you take into account the number of Oil related accidents, which have occurred over the last few years. I personally think for the small amount of Jobs created by all the Oil Industry in the area, Pembrokeshire has been visually blighted by the skyscraping metal giants. Infringing on the natural beauty, and then all the Petrochemical related illnesses, that will only come to light in the future.

Very interesting comment.

Although Kingofmumu raises some valid points, the list of our current essential needs which would not be possible without oil refining is extensive. Oil refining is necessary for our current life styles and for most of the everyday things that we take for granted.

My point is, if we all rely on and demand the products produced from oil refining, should we not also accept that refining is not without inherent risks or environmental impact? And more to the point, why should we not accept that it is carried out in an ideal place such as Pembrokeshire? Especially as it brings good jobs with it which are few and far between locally.

If you cannot live with a local oil refinery, then you must also be happy to stop using your car, heating your home with oil/gas, buying anything not made locally, going abroad for a holiday, relying on an ambulance arriving if you are injured.............
.....the list goes on.

Alternatively you could move home, but I guess that you will still be using your car and therefore inflicting others with the drawbacks of your chosen lifestyle. A bit unfair if you ask me.

MrEric wrote:
Although Kingofmumu raises some valid points, the list of our current essential needs which would not be possible without oil refining is extensive. Oil refining is necessary for our current life styles and for most of the everyday things that we take for granted.

My point is, if we all rely on and demand the products produced from oil refining, should we not also accept that refining is not without inherent risks or environmental impact? And more to the point, why should we not accept that it is carried out in an ideal place such as Pembrokeshire? Especially as it brings good jobs with it which are few and far between locally.

If you cannot live with a local oil refinery, then you must also be happy to stop using your car, heating your home with oil/gas, buying anything not made locally, going abroad for a holiday, relying on an ambulance arriving if you are injured.............

.....the list goes on.

Alternatively you could move home, but I guess that you will still be using your car and therefore inflicting others with the drawbacks of your chosen lifestyle. A bit unfair if you ask me.

In the near future the refineries will be gone As we all know Oil reserves are running out fast. Before this happens Pembrokeshire should be looking into to the creation of low impact light industrial jobs involving the production of alternative greener technology. We should be giving the farming ,fishing and holiday industries more support and create further jobs within them.
We should be shopping buying local produce, quite soon this is all we will have access to, so we should be supporting the local producers more now. All the everyday items you say we need and demand are yesterdays ideas, not for the future. We will not need items made from Petrochemicals in the future, if we do, we will have no future. If you do not think I am crazy yet, hold on.

Industrial hemp could create millions of jobs world wide. Hemp is a miracle plant that as been banned from the globe by Big Pharma and the Petrochemical industries. People should research what hemp can provide to us all. I am not talking about Cannabis, thats another story. Just Industrial Hemp you can get two crops a year and it will grow almost anywhere, seeds are cheap and it needs no fertilisers or pesticides. It was once described as the million dollar crop. See site below there is alot more if you search Industrial Hemp on line.

http://www.thehempsh
op.co.uk/why-hemp.ph
p