Development of the Little Aden Oil Refinery

In March 1951 the Iranian government nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s (AIOC’s) refinery at Abadan on the Persian Gulf. The AIOC as a matter of urgency had to identify other possible locations for a new refinery. Aden was soon short-listed, principally because of its geographic location between the Gulf and Suez but also because of the market potential of the ships that called at Aden.

The man at the Colonial Office dealing with a potential application to build a refinery at Aden was none other than Sir Bernard Reilly, now almost 70 and working as a consultant. He thought the Governor, Sir Tom Hickinbotham, would welcome the project as long as a suitable site with sufficient space could be found. But Hickinbotham had very mixed feelings about the idea, principally because of the inflationary pressures it would have on the Aden economy.

AIOC sent a party out to examine the possibilities and they reported back sufficiently favourably for detailed surveys and planning to be undertaken. The Chairman of AOIC was keen to avoid the creation of a refinery community socially and materially detached from the rest of the Colony – and in this he would be ultimately totally unsuccessful.  It was envisaged that when operational the refinery would employ over 3,000 men, including around 400 Europeans. During construction the numbers would be much greater, some 2,000 Europeans or Americans and a labour force of around 7,500. The refinery and associated infrastructure would take two years to build.

Little Aden was not the only location considered. Another possibility was to build the refinery and a new port on the northern side of the Inner Harbour in the area of Hiswa, referred to as ‘within the arms of the Rubble Mound’. This would have allowed the desired integration with the existing community but the biggest drawback was that it would take three years to dredge a channel to the new port – far too long for AIOC which needed to get a new refinery operating as soon as possible. The half-and-half option of a port at Little Aden and a refinery in the area of Hiswa was considered uneconomic due the cost of laying a steel pipeline between the two areas. Hence Little Aden was selected, with the new port to be built in the area of Pinnacle Rock, with initially four oil berths, one cargo jetty, a turning basin and a dredged channel sufficiently large to take the largest tankers then operating (32,000 tons). The throughput capacity of the refinery would be five million tons a year (which it is believed equates to only 170,000 barrels a day). The total area to be used was some 270 acres.

Dorsetshire

A project programme was issued in February 1952 and a memorandum of understanding published in June and on 15 July a pilot construction team arrived in Aden. The target date for completion and beginning operations was September 1954, (in which year Anglo-Iranian changed its name to British Petroleum).

At the start Little Aden was totally lacking in infrastructure and the problem of housing the European workers was largely solved by using a former troopship, the 9,500 ton Dorsetshire, for accommodation.

The refinery was opened in 1954 as forecast, with a capacity of 170,000 barrels a day - which apparently was never achieved. It was working at well below capacity when it was nationalised in 1977 following the British withdrawal from Aden. The installations were badly damaged in the civil war of 1994 which reduced capacity even further to 60,000 to 70,000 barrels a day. In 2005 capacity was still around 70,000 barrels – sufficient for local needs but not much more.