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Displaying items by tag: Irving Oil

#WhitegateOil – As the Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork Harbour is the only such strategic facility in the State, Afloat took an opportunity to highlight a tanker berthed at the terminal today, writes Jehan Ashmore.

According to the Port of Cork, one of the berths at the terminal’s jetty is occupied by the Faroese-flagged Fure Fladen. The 18,000dwt tonnes oil/chemical tanker had sailed overnight from an anchorage on Firth of Clyde, Scotland.

In Autumn 2016 a Canadian firm, Irving Oil decided to buy Whitegate from US owners Phillipps 66, and this has ensured security of supply to the market.

Speaking at the official launch by new owners Irving Oil as reported in The Irish Times, the Minister for the Environment Denis Naughten said the Whitegate facility was “crucially important for Ireland”

“It is crucially important from the point of view that this is the only oil refinery on the island of Ireland. It is much easier to access crude oil than processed oils – petrol and diesel. So it is important from a security point of view that we have an oil refinery on the island. It is not just an Irish issue. It is a European issue as well.

The future of the refinery employing 160 had been in doubt, given the 15-year operating licence ran out during last summer.

Acquisition by Irving Oil had allayed local concerns as the company announced it would be operating the plant with its existing full workforce.

The 144m long Fure Fladen is scheduled to depart tomorrow. A next port of call is Eastham where the Mersey meets the lochs entrance to the Manchester Ship Canal. 

Published in Cork Harbour

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.