850 jobs are at risk at an oil refinery that is set to close after administrators failed to find a buyer or the investment needed to keep it going.
The Coryton plant in Essex supplies 20% of fuel in London and the South East.
This is a devastating blow for jobs in the local economy in Essex, for the UK energy sector and for the UK economy as a whole.
This is yet another anarchical outcome adversely impacting on the UK's basic energy infrastructure arising from financial developments with their owners which are unrelated to UK needs.
Edmund King, president of the AA, said the closure of the Coryton oil refinery in Essex is bad news for Britain's fuel supply resilience. He said:
The tragedy is not only the loss of a refinery and jobs in an industry which produces some of the cheapest petrol in Europe but the question mark it raises with the UK's fuel supply resilience during bad winters and industrial action.
The UK's fuel industry is extremely adept at shifting fuel supplies around the UK, but Coryton's loss makes that task more difficult.
The refinery supplies 20% of fuel in London and the South East.
It is disappointing that PWC has been unable to find a buyer for Coryton. This is particularly bad news for the workers at Coryton...
We want to reassure people that there will not be any impact on fuel supply from this development. Continuing jetty operations at Coryton means that there should be no loss of supply through the terminal to London and the South East.
Closure of the refinery reflects overcapacity in the European refining sector and there have been a number of refineries have closed across Europe in recent years.
Closure of Coryton refinery to put 850 jobs at risk
The Petroplus Refinery in Coryton, Essex, is to be closed. Credit: John Stillwell/PA Wire
An oil refinery which went bust is to close after administrators failed to find a buyer or the cash needed to keep it going, putting around 850 jobs at risk.
The Coryton plant in Essex, which supplies 20% of fuel in London and the South East, was plunged into administration earlier this year by its Swiss owner Petroplus.
Administrators PwC said the site would be wound down over the next three months after the challenge of raising the £625 million needed to fund the refinery proved too much.
There are likely to be a "substantial" number of redundancies among the 500 workforce, PwC said, while around 350 contractors will learn their fate in the next few days.
