Caltex Australia confirms it will close Kurnell refinery by mid-2014

Caltex Australia has confirmed the planned closure of its 135,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery at Kurnell in the east coast city of Sydney. The shutdown is scheduled in the second half of 2014.
The company announced on July 26 this year that it planned to shut Kurnell and convert the plant into an import facility. Since then, Caltex has conducted consultations with employees and unions at the refinery and “has decided to proceed with the Kurnell closure and conversion,” the company said in a statement.
The long-expected closure will leave Australia’s largest city without an oil refinery. Shell Australia earlier this year confirmed it would also convert its 79,000 bpd refinery in the Sydney suburb of Clyde into an import terminal, with the process due to start from September 30.
Caltex’s relatively small refineries have struggled, in their current configurations, to compete with larger scale, more efficient refineries in Asia.
The closure of Kurnell leaves Australia with five operating oil refineries, each with capacities of around 100,000 bpd.