§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will give his estimate of the total oil refining capacity in the United Kingdom, additional capacity on order and under construction and the percentage of total capacity currently being utilised.
§ Dr. J. Dickson MabonAt the end of 1975 gross United Kingdom refinery capacity as given in the 1976 Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics was 147.1 million tonnes per annum. Since then an additional 2.1 million tonnes per annum has been commissioned at Conoco's Killingholme refinery.
In the 12 months up to the end of November 1976, utilisation of this gross capacity was about 66 per cent. After allowance for reductions in effective capacity due to maintenance and other factors, this probably represented about 78 per cent. of net achievable capacity.
Outline planning permissions are outstanding for up to 26 million tons per annum of extra refining capacity, but none of this is currently under active construction.