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Commonwealth Oil Refineries

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Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd.
Company 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.

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.

Early history

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

The partnership was established in 1920 on the initiative of Australian 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, COR purchased the disused shale oil refinery at Hamilton, New South Wales, 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, the company opened Australia's first refinery to process 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.[citation needed] The refinery had an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons of crude oil. The refinery was shut down on 6 August 1955, having been eclipsed by much larger refineries built around the country.

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

BP

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In 1952, the Coalition government led by Menzies sold the Australian government interest in C.O.R. to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which became the British Petroleum Company (BP) in 1954. The last speech in parliament by former PM, Billy Hughes, was an attack on the Menzies government's decision to sell its share in C.O.R, the state-owned enterprise Hughes' 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, BP developed a refinery at Kwinana, Western Australia[10]

BP/COR

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

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Fitzhardinge, L. F. (1983). "Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862 - 1952)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  2. ^ Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd. (1920-1952), 2008, retrieved 15 July 2024 – via Trove
  3. ^ "Anglo-Persian Oil Co". Western Argus. Vol. 25, no. 5052. Western Australia. 31 August 1920. p. 12. Retrieved 25 January 2019 – via Trove.
  4. ^ "Hamilton Oil Works". Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate. 16 August 1923. p. 6. Retrieved 13 June 2022 – via Trove.
  5. ^ "Why to Victoria?". The Daily Telegraph. 24 August 1922. p. 4. Retrieved 13 June 2022 – via Trove.
  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. ^ The romance of the C.O.R.: a great national institution, Commonwealth Oil Refineries (Australia), 1938, retrieved 20 June 2015 – via Trove
  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 – via Trove
  9. ^ Fitzhardinge 1979, p. 670.
  10. ^ And now Kwinana, Australasian Petroleum Refinery in conjunction with C.O.R, 1955, retrieved 20 June 2015 – via Trove
  11. ^ "Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd (1920 - c. 1952)". Australian Science at Work. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  12. ^ BP C.O.R. road map Western Australia, BP Australia, 1957, retrieved 20 June 2015 – via Trove

Works cited

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  • 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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