The Kurnell Story

Kurnell, on the southern shore of Botany Bay, just south of Sydney, is steeped in Australian history. It was here, on 29 April 1770, that James Cook landed the Endeavour on her most famous discovery voyage.

Kurnell is linked to a number of names of significance to Australia's history:

It was 183 years after the Endeavour landing that the Caltex refineries story at Kurnell begins in Cronulla. At the time, Kurnell was a small fishing village, linked to the rest of Sydney by boat. Transport in Kurnell was by horse-drawn carriage, and one of the first considerations was to construct a road from Cronulla to Kurnell. Caltex financed the road, and in February 1953, the first sod was turned for the road to Kurnell. The unsealed road, now known as Captain Cook Drive, was open to traffic four months later.

In December of that year, Caltex laid the foundations for what is now one of the largest oil refineries in Australia. By February 1956, the refinery was pumping oil products by submarine pipeline across Botany Bay to the Banksmeadow oil terminal.

The refinery itself was built by Australian Oil Refining Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Caltex Petroleum Corporation, New York. Now the refinery is owned by Caltex Australia Limited.

The Banksmeadow terminal had been built on Botany Bay's north shore simultaneously with the refinery. From there, road and rail tankers began distributing fuel around NSW. When operations commenced, the refinery had an initial capacity of 22,000 bpd (barrels per day). The original refinery process plants were No 1 CDU (Crude Distillation Unit), No 1 PDU (Propane De-asphalting Unit), No 1 FCCU (Fluidised Catalytic Cracking Unit) and the Polymerisation plant.

The refinery was originally designed to process crude from the Minas field in Sumatra, Indonesia, and until 1963, only this crude was refined. With the start up of CLOR (Caltex Lubricating Oil Refinery Ltd) in 1963, however, it became necessary to process Arabian crude oil to produce base stocks for lube oil manufacture. Thus from 1963 until 1968, the refinery processed only two crudes, mainly Minas and the quantity of Arabian required to produce CLOR base stocks.

However, with continued increase in production, Australian light crude eventually dominated, reaching 70% of the throughput. This has since declined to about 60%. Today, following continued improvement and expansion, the Kurnell refineries' capacity has increased to 124,500 bpd.

Kurnell Wharf

The Caltex Wharf at Kurnell is the lifeline of the refinery, making possible the supply of crude oil and distribution of product by ship and pipeline. On the northern side of the wharf, rows of pipelines connect the refinery's tanks to the three berths, the Banksmeadow terminal and, via the Sydney-Newcastle Pipeline, to the Silverwater and Newcastle terminals. Most important is the jet line supplying 50% of the airline fuel needed by Sydney Airport. The wharf also supports the cooling water pump house providing part of the refinery's cooling water.

Completed in 1956, the wharf extends more than 1000m into Botany Bay from Cook's landing place at the southern headland. Comprising over 5000m² of deck area and supported by almost 900 piles, the structure is constructed almost entirely of reinforced concrete. The piles were pre-cast on the other side of the bay at Botany and barged over and driven into place with the remaining structure cast in situ. The superstructure has two levels: an upper deck for vehicular traffic and a lower, mostly open lattice of beams, supporting the pipework.

Although the wharf structure has basically not changed since its construction, the ship fendering systems have been varied numerous times. Originally catering for ships of up to 30,000 tonnes capacity, an upgrade in 1996 made it possible to berth ships of up to 45,000 tonnes.