why are oil refineries remote from areas of production?

Question

explain reasons why oil companies decide to base oil refining remote from areas of production

Answer 1

Refining oil is a complicated, dangerous business. You would not want a refinery on your doorstep. Think of the destruction when the fuel storage depot went up last year, they are still assessing the damage. It's easier to pipe the oil or gas to place of use rather than build refineries in areas of population.

Answer 2

Production areas typically have poor industrial/commercial infrastructure (power, transport, labour pool, etcetera), or none at all in the case of offshore production. Refineries need to have good industrial/commercial infrastructure.

However, Saudi Arabia has its refineries pretty close to the production fields. And in Britain, Grangemouth and Canvey Island are about as close as any refinery could be to the North Sea.

Answer 3

Oil bed's are normally created by sea beds, so are either in a ocean or have been raised up out of the water to form deserts and plateaus.
Humans rarely settled in such flat open land, and therefore cities wern't built there.
It's cheaper for the oil company to refine near to a work force (populated area) than to refine on the extraction site (far from work force). This is becuase refining take alot of workers/employees, and we all know how much we hate driving to work :P

Answer 4

Total guess: The raw product can be shipped as a single commodity - crude oil. Refineries break it down into various fuels from tarry ship bunker c to butanes... the markets for these products are varied. I expect having the refineries near markets rather than near source saves a lot on shipping - one product in in bulk, dozens of byproducts out scattered all over the marketplace... sound ok?

Answer 5

This sounds like you want someone to do an assignment for you.

I can tell you why the areas of production are where they are. It's because the oil is there.

Answer 6

production (getting it out of the ground) is a situation that you have to go where the goods are... in pristine alaska wilderness, in the middle of the ocean.
refining, one would choose a place that typically is easily accessible by tankers (ships) to get it in from other countries (in the case of the u.s.) and then on the outgoing end, good accessibility to rail and roads to ship product out.

Answer 7

Did you see the mess when Buncefield went bang?!

Answer 8

because they are hazardous places and could cause a threat of fire damage to other industries