Hi all,

My grandmother recently passed away and I am trying to piece together some of my granddads life.

One particular aspect of his past that I am interested in is his business dealings in the Wirral. At some point between 1950-1980 (sorry I cant be more specific) he and his business partner worked on a project where they dismantled an oil refinery and shipped it to South America (possibly mexico).

Does anyone know anything about this? A name of the oil refinery in question would be a good start!

Ross

I can't say I've ever heard of an Oil refinery (petrol) being moved, that doesn't mean that it wasn't, are you certain it was fuel (petrol) related and not perhaps Fats and Edible oil related, in which case it could have something to do with Unilever.
Snod might know, he was our Unilever man.

Apologies for the lack of specific information but as far as I am aware the oil refinery was bought by a mexican company, who then stripped its assets and transported them to Mexico.

The only other clues that I have to go on are that the company who moved the refinery was called Alvaro Palazuuelos

Snod does not remember Unilever involved in anything like that. There were oil (edible) associated with Van den Burghs but it would be illogical for anyone to move edible oil refining to Mexico at the dates quoted because there was then (and maybe now) no inherent crude vegetable oil source from withing Mexico, so no real need for a refinery.

Snod

There's a few of slight possibilities ...

The British East India Company, a Birkenhead company and part of Stanton Marine moved a North Sea refinery.

A Wirral company were involved in a ship that was sold as scrap then was rebuilt as a refinery, I think in either Nicaragua or Nigeria.

Its not uncommon for sites like Stanlow (or Eastham) to sell plants on when they are updating their facilities.

Wasn't an oil rig for the gulf of Mexico was it? Seems more logical!

There was the Vacuum Oil Co. works in Wallasey Bridge Road, later Mobil, but it was not a refinery. Vacuum was associated with Standard Oil in America and had 2 ships which brought in the oils for blending into specialist lubricants for industry. It opened in 1901, with research laboratories included. It was an obvious target for bombing in WW2 and was rebuilt. It must have been an important plant, judging by the size of it along Wallasey Bridge Road.
Mobil went into petroleum refining and built the Coryton Refinery, now in the news, in 1953, so presumably Birkenhead became less important and was closed in 2003.
It looks derelict now, on Streetview,
Another part of Birkenhead's important industrial past gone!!

Birkenhead Mobil is long derelict and quite stripped out, but there a few of us from the urban exploration corner who have documented it internally. Click here for some pics.

Just wonder if this was the old Burmah refinery in Ellesmere Port?

This was the first one to be set up to accept North Sea Oil from memory but it didn't have a long life, as Burmah ran into its financial problems and I THINK it was dismantled and exported to somewhere!

Xan_Asmodi
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