Bulwer island oil refinery

The Bulwer Island oil refinery is located in Queensland on reclaimed land bound by Boggy Creek and the Brisbane River. It is owned and operated by BP and has a capacity to refine 101,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Bulwer Island oil Refinery Built by Amoco in 1965
The Bulwer Island oil refinery was built by oil company, Amoco, in 1965. Amoco successfully kept the plant operational until it was taken over by BP in 1984. Since being acquired by BP the refinery has undergone many upgrades to its technology as well as necessary expansion programs to enable it to produce cleaner fuels for transportation. The greatest expansion to take place at the refinery took place in the late 1990's when the entire refinery was shut down over five days.

Bulwer Island oil Refinery Produces a Wide Range of Petroleum Products
The refined products from the Bulwer Island oil refinery are mainly distributed by pipeline to the company's marketing terminal at Whinstanes, as well as to other product terminals in Brisbane, to be distributed to their end destinations by road tankers. Jet fuel produced at the Bulwer Island refinery is supplied to the Brisbane airport by a direct pipeline. LPG, another crude oil end product, is delivered to a nearby terminal for it to be distributed to the company's customers by road transport. Other products are sent to wharf terminals in Townsville, Mackay and Gladstone. The occasional shipment is sent to Sydney and Newcastle even as far away as Antarctica. The Bulwer Island product range includes the following:

- Propane and butane (LPG)
- Kerosene
- Hydrogen
- Fuel oil
- Bitumen
- Jet fuel and aviation gasoline (Aviation fuel)
- Diesel fuel
- Petrol, both premium unleaded and unleaded
- Heating oil
- Sulpher

Most production from the Bulwer Island oil refinery is diesel and jet fuel. The diesel is provided to the Queensland transport and mining industries to meet a fast growing demand. It was the first oil refinery in Australia to produce renewable diesel from Tallow. The Bulwer Island refinery has a capacity to refine 94,000 barrels, or 15 megalitres of crude oil a day.

Bulwer Island Workforce Swells to Over 1,000 During Maintenance Shut Downs
The Bulwer Island oil refinery employs about 350 permanent BP staff members and 250 contractors on site. Although on any one day there would be around 700 people working on site. This number swells to about 1,100 when major maintenance is undertaken. The crude oil refined at the plant is sourced from South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The refinery also supports and manages an ecologically important mangrove forest that exists on Bulwer Island.

Bulwer Island Refinery Still Growing
One of the latest additions to the Bulwer Island oil refinery operations was the completion of its new bitumen and marine fuel import centre. This new facility is able to supply over 240,000 tonnes of bitumen a year, an effective increase of over 50 percent.
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The new marine fuel terminal consists of new storage tanks capable of storing 30,000 tonnes of marine fuel, a new double hulled bunker barge and a new dedicated barge wharf. This now give BP the means to deliver three different marine fuels.