Commonwealth Oil Refineries

Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd.
Subsidiary
Industry Petroleum
Successor BP Australia Limited
Founded 1920
Defunct 1957
Area served
Australia
Products Refined petroleum fuels and related products
Profit £93,429 (1940)
Total assets £2,195,227 (1940)
Parent British Petroleum Company Ltd.

Commonwealth Oil Refineries (COR) was an Australian oil company that operated between 1920 and 1952 as a joint venture of the Australian government and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

Early history

The Commonwealth Oil Refineries terminal in Carrington, New South Wales.

The partnership was established in 1920 on the initiative of prime minister Billy Hughes.[1][2]

In 1924 it opened Australia's first oil refinery near Laverton, Victoria, north of the Melbourne - Geelong railway, adjacent to Kororoit Creek Road.[3][4] The refinery received its first shipment of crude oil on 12 March 1924, with product coming "on-stream" on 17 May 1924. The refinery had an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons of crude oil. The refinery was shut down on 6 August 1955, eclipsed by much larger refineries being built around the country.

In the 1930s the company was involved in oil search ventures.[5]

BP

In 1952, the Menzies Coalition government sold the Australian government's interest in COR to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which became the British Petroleum Company (BP) in 1954.

In 1955 it developed a refinery at Kwinana, Western Australia[6]

BP/COR

Between 1952 and 1959, BP Australia branded its standard-grade petrol as COR, but then dropped the name.[7][8]

See also

References

  1. Fitzhardinge, L. F. (1983). "Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862 - 1952)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: Australian National University. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  2. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1921), Report of the directors and balance sheet, The Company, retrieved 20 June 2015
  3. "A History of Altona and Laverton: Industrial Development". Altona and Laverton Historial Society. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
  4. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1938), The romance of the C.O.R. : a great national institution, C.O.R, retrieved 20 June 2015
  5. Amos, D. J. (Douglas James) (1935), The story of the Commonwealth Oil Refineries and the search for oil, E.J. McAlister & Co, retrieved 20 June 2015
  6. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia); Australasian Petroleum Refinery Ltd (1955), And now Kwinana, Australasian Petroleum Refinery in conjunction with C.O.R, retrieved 20 June 2015
  7. "Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd (1920 - c. 1952)". Australian Science at Work. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  8. BP Australia; Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1957), BP C.O.R. road map Western Australia, BP Australia, retrieved 20 June 2015


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/8/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.