April 04, 2013 [Sydney Morning Herald] - Petroleum giant Shell has announced that its Geelong refinery is for sale. Shell's downstream vice president Andrew Smith said if a buyer cannot be found, the refinery could be converted into a fuel import terminal.
Speaking shortly after 11.30am on Thursday, Mr Smith said the decision to divest or close the asset, which has been operating for almost 60 years, was not easy.
Mr Smith said he wanted the sale process to completed by 2014. ”Shell is committed to a timely sale process … it is difficult to predict the outcome and timing,” he said.
”If a sale on agreeable terms cannot be reached there are options available, this could include converting the refinery into an import terminal.”The Geelong refinery employs close to 470 people, and many of those jobs would be lost if the site was converted into an import terminal.
Employee numbers reduced by about 80 per cent when Shell converted the Clyde refinery into an import terminal.
Mr Smith was reluctant to speculate on the number of jobs that would be lost under the conversion to an import terminal, saying he hoped to find a buyer who would want to continue operating at Geelong.
He said any new buyer would be bound by the workplace agreements in place, and that Shell was committed to keepings its workers informed and providing counselling services.
When asked if Shell had sought government funding assistance to continue operating, Mr Smith said; ‘‘We don’t believe that financial assistance from the government is appropriate.’’
The threat to turn Geelong into an import refinery echoes similar decisions made by the company and its rivals in recent years at other refineries around Australia.
Over the past two years Shell has closed refining operations at Sydney’s Clyde refinery and converted it into an import terminal for petroleum products made overseas.
Rival Caltex has been facing the same pressures and recently announced the Kurnell refinery in Sydney will also change to become an import terminal. Australia’s fleet of ageing oil refineries have been enduring a painful period as they try to compete against much larger and cheaper oil refineries in Asia, who can sell their products into Australia cheaper than it can be made here.
”I can’t speculate about who the likely buyers may be… we have sold other refineries before, and there are people who have different portfolios and views of the future,” Mr Smith said.
