The 135,000-b/d refinery stopped production in November 2014, but has since been used as storage terminal.

It is believed the Murco refinery, which was upgraded in 2010, will be rebuilt next to the 115,000-b/d Gulf Oil Milford Haven refinery, also bought by Byco. The refinery began operation in Pakistan in 2012 and is now known as the Baluchistan refinery.

Puma Energy, the joint venture between trading company Trafigura and the Angolan company Sonangol, bought the Murco Refinery in Milford Haven with the deal concluded on June 30. The former refinery will probably be known as the Puma Milford Haven Terminal.

It is understood that the Puma U.K. head office will be at the Westerleigh inland terminal site in Gloucestershire. The general manager of Puma U.K., Roy Brooke, is a former crude trader, working at Elf and Texaco, before joining Petroplus and then the Oil Pipelines Agency.

The sale will convert the refinery into a storage location with a capacity of 1.4 million cubic meters. It also includes the three inland terminals at Westerleigh, Theale and Bedworth, where diesel, UK-grade kerosene and gasoline will be distributed to inland customers.

So far, 2.7 million bbl of crude oil, 35,000 tons of fuel oil and 35,000 tons of kerosene have been discharged and stored at the terminal for the account of Puma.

However, it is considered that modifications will have to be made at the Murco installation, such as installing an automatic shutdown facility on Class 1 tanks. After the Buncefield oil fire in 2005, the Health and Safety Executive has insisted that other storage installations in Milford Haven have such operations on both Class 1 and Class 2 tanks.

Murco Petroleum closed the refinery when the negotiations to sell the refinery to Klesch Refining fell through last year.