Surplus Coryton refinery land up for sale

More than 400 acres of land within the shuttered Coryton refinery has been offered for sale by Vopak and its partners.
Following the acquisition of the site in June 2012 – Vopak, Greenenergy and Shell UK Limited have decided that 403 acres of land will not be required by the joint venture and have offered it for sale.
The partners have also said that they are continuing to review options for the remaining 161 acres of land, which was originally planned to have a new oil product storage facility.
As previously reported in October 2014, the Thames Oilport facility, which was originally planned to open at the end of 2013, was put on indefinite hold with no new timetable.
The project, which has been marred with problems including escalating costs, remains “under review” a spokeswoman for Vopak confirmed. It was previously announced that if constructed the facility would be able to store approximately 500,000 m3.
The former refinery structures are in the process of being demolished and the site is expected to be clear by 2016. Cleared land can be released for redevelopment in stages, with around 100 acres available immediately. CBRE has been appointed to market the site.
Vopak says in a statement: ‘Vopak and its partners conducted a thorough assessment of this project, including the analyses of the economic circumstances, the key market development in the south east of the UK, the European refinery sector developments and the total development costs of the project.’
‘The partners have concluded that under all scenarios 403 acres of land will not be required and accordingly decided to now offer this land for sale. Vopak has conducted its own in-depth analysis of the financial consequences of the decision of offer the land for sale and recognises, subject to certain assumptions, an impairment on the book value of its equity participation in the joint venture in the range of €40 – 45 million.’
A significant part of the loss related to the anticipated demolition of the remaining structures on the land which were not in use and therefore did not contribute to the earnings.
Vopak says that the impairment will be reported as an exception loss in the HY1 2015 figures.