Pie in the sky oil refinery plan to cost Kerry £50,000

April 1994

PROCESSING a planning application for a $1 billion oil refinery at Tarbert could cost Kerry County Council as much as £50,000 — despite the fact that the project is very unlikely ever to proceed.

The council’s planning department this week received the detailed planning application from Aran Energy to build the massive facility on their 300 acre site between Tarbert and Ballylongford.

However, the application is very similar to planning permission granted to Aran Energy 11 years ago but which expired in October of ‘93. It was never proceeded with.

The maximum planning fee of £10,000 accompanied the application. But it is estimated that it will cost about £50,000 for Kerry County Council to process. Council planning officer, Derek Daly, confirmed that outside consultants will be required to go through the highly technical application but he would not be drawn on possible costs.

Aran Energy’s head of corporate planning and strategy, Peter D Gorman, told The Kerryman this week that he could not say when or if the plant, with capacity to refine 2bn gallons of oil a year, will be built.

“It is just impossible to say when it will be built,” he told The Kerryman.

A stock broking oil industry analyst told The Kerryman the possibility of the plant being developed at Tarbert is very remote unless there is a very significant commercial find off the Irish coast.

“At the moment it’s pie in the sky,” he said.

“Even if oil is found in commercial quantities off the West coast this summer it will be the next century before it is brought ashore,” the analyst said.

However, Aran Energy have found a well off the Conemara cost which has a reserve of about 200 million barrels of oil but which is uneconomic to develop at present prices.

Mr Gorman said Aran Energy has been actively looking for an international partner to develop the oil refinery at Tarbert. But he explained that over the last three years the fact that the planning permission was coming to the end of its life hindered their efforts.

However, Mr Gorman said that, with changes in the specifications for oil in the US and Europe, refineries are becoming obsolete and extra refining capacity will be required worldwide. The refinery site is on a location which is situated between two Office of Public Works designated Areas of Scientific Interest at Ballylongford Bay and Tarbert Bay.

The pipe-laying on Main Street for Dingle’s new sewerage system - work which Kerry County Council has promised to have finished by May 1 under pressure from Dingle Chamber of Commerce.