Commonwealth Oil Refineries

Commonwealth Oil Refineries (COR) was an Australian oil company that operated between 1920 and 1952 as a joint venture of the Australian government and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd.
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryPetroleum
Founded1920
Defunct1957
SuccessorBP Australia Limited
Area served
Australia
ProductsRefined petroleum fuels and related products
£93,429 (1940)
Total assets£2,195,227 (1940)
ParentBritish Petroleum Company Ltd.
For the Australian shale oil producer, see Commonwealth Oil Corporation. For the Puerto Rican oil refining company, see Commonwealth Oil Refining Company.

Early history
The Commonwealth Oil Refineries terminal in Carrington, New South Wales.

The partnership was established in 1920 on the initiative of prime minister Billy Hughes.[1][2]

The board was to consist of seven members, three representing the Commonwealth and four representing the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The provisional board consisted of: Sir Robert Garran, M. C. Lockyer, and Robert Gibson for the Commonwealth, and F. H. Bathurst, Professor Payne, T. J. Greenway, and W. J. Windeyer for the oil company.[3] Greenway served as chairman for the first year.

In 1922, the company purchased the disused shale oil refinery at Hamilton, that had been operated by British Australian Oil Company, and relocated equipment from there for use in its new refinery in Victoria.[4][5]

In 1924 it opened Australia's first oil refinery that processed imported crude oil, near Laverton, Victoria, north of the Melbourne - Geelong railway, adjacent to Kororoit Creek Road.[6][7] The refinery received its first shipment of crude oil on 12 March 1924, with product coming "on-stream" on 17 May 1924. The refinery had an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons of crude oil. The refinery was shut down on 6 August 1955, eclipsed by much larger refineries being built around the country.

In the 1930s the company was involved in oil search ventures.[8]

BP

In 1952, the Menzies Coalition government sold the Australian government's interest in COR to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which became the British Petroleum Company (BP) in 1954. Former PM Billy Hughes last speech in parliament was an attack on the Menzies Government's decision to sell its share in Commonwealth Oil Refineries, one of the state-owned enterprises his government had established over 30 years earlier. According to H.V. Evatt, his speech "seemed at once to grip the attention of all honourable members present ... nobody left the House, and nobody seemed to dare to move".[9]

In 1955 it developed a refinery at Kwinana, Western Australia[10]

BP/COR

Between 1952 and 1959, BP Australia branded its standard-grade petrol as COR, but then dropped the name.[11][12]

See also

References
  1. Fitzhardinge, L. F. (1983). "Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862 - 1952)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  2. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1921), Report of the directors and balance sheet, The Company, retrieved 20 June 2015
  3. "Anglo-Persian Oil Co". Western Argus. Vol. 25, no. 5052. Western Australia. 31 August 1920. p. 12. Retrieved 25 January 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. "HAMILTON OIL WORKS". Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate. 16 August 1923. p. 6. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  5. "WHY TO VICTORIA?". Daily Telegraph. 24 August 1922. p. 4. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  6. "A History of Altona and Laverton: Industrial Development". Altona and Laverton Historical Society. Archived from the original on 9 April 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2013.
  7. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1938), The romance of the C.O.R. : a great national institution, C.O.R, retrieved 20 June 2015
  8. Amos, D. J. (Douglas James) (1935), The story of the Commonwealth Oil Refineries and the search for oil, E.J. McAlister & Co, retrieved 20 June 2015
  9. Fitzhardinge 1979, p. 670.
  10. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia); Australasian Petroleum Refinery Ltd (1955), And now Kwinana, Australasian Petroleum Refinery in conjunction with C.O.R, retrieved 20 June 2015
  11. "Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd (1920 - c. 1952)". Australian Science at Work. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  12. BP Australia; Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia) (1957), BP C.O.R. road map Western Australia, BP Australia, retrieved 20 June 2015

Works cited
  • Fitzhardinge, L. F. (1979). William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography. Vol. 2: The Little Digger, 1914–1952. Angus & Robertson. ISBN 0207132453.
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