Altona refinery

The Altona oil refinery, that is owned and operated by Exxon Mobil, is located 13 kilometres west of Melbourne. The refinery operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, processing crude oil into 13 million litres of refined petroleum products each day, sufficient to fill the tanks of up to 300,000 vehicles.

Petrol Comprises 60 Percent of the Altona Refinery's Product
The refining of crude oil into petrol represents around 60 percent of Exxon
Mobile's refinery product. Diesel fuel represents around 30 percent and jet fuel about 10 percent. The percentage production of the different fuels is dependent on the type of crude oil being refined at the time, as some oils will produce varying amounts of LPG (liquid petroleum gas) during the refining process.

Refined Petroleum Products Stored at the Altona Tank Farm
Once the different refined products are produced they are pumped into their respective storage tanks to await distribution. There are around 100 storage tanks at the Altona 'tank farm' and at the refinery itself. Up to 90 percent of the refined petroleum products created at the Altona refinery is piped to other industry terminals, as well as the Mobil Yarraville Terminal, from where it is distributed to different outlets by road.

Altona Refinery's LPG has Wide Industrial Uses
The Altona crude oil refinery also produces LPG that is supplied to the nearby Altona chemical complex. This complex, in turn, supplies the product to numerous petrochemical manufacturing facilities in the locality. These petrochemical manufacturing plants use the LPG to manufacture a wide variety of consumer products, such as; tyres, car batteries, TV and radio cabinets, wire insulation, films, plastics and adhesives.

Thousands of People Rely on the Altona Refinery for Their Livelihoods
The Altona crude oil refinery, that creates direct employment for up to 350 personnel and thousands of indirect jobs in various fields, processes crude oil that it obtains from domestic and foreign sources. Half of the crude oil it refines is obtained from the Bass Strait oil platforms, south east of Melbourne. This oil is directly transported to the refinery by pipeline. The remaining 50 percent of crude oil is sourced from South East Asia which is delivered to Australia by large oil tankers to the Point Gellibrand dock at Williamstown.

Refining of Crude oil at Altona Requires Constant Monitoring
The refining of crude oil at the Exxon Mobil Altona refinery is achieved in a number of units that are linked by hundreds of kilometres of pipes, all regulated by thousands of valves. There are instruments governing each unit, which are, in turn, linked to a sophisticated process control computer system. Technicians constantly monitor, regulate and optimise the process through computer consoles.

The refining process begins by passing the crude oil through a distribution tower, or pipe-still. The oil is there subjected to intense heat that vapourises most of the oil. As the vapours rise through the tower the different compounds cool and separate. The heavier molecules rise a short distance while the lighter molecules rise more. Various fractions then condense to liquid and accumulate on collection trays placed at varying heights inside the tower. This particular process therefore separates the crude oil into its various components that are based on their molecule weight.

Crude oil, such as that refined at the Altona oil refinery, is the combination of two elements, carbon and hydrogen. The atoms of these elements combine in many different ways to form hydrocarbons. No two oilfields produce the same crude oil with the differences being wide in composition and colour. Some crude oil can be a light yellow colour, much like olive oil where others can be thick and black with an appearance very similar to that of treacle
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