Article 730- 27 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 73) – Verolme Bound”

Two years previous to Whitegate Oil Refinery officially opening in 1957, negotiations began with a Dutch firm for the establishment in Cork Harbour of a large scale ship building operation. The negotiations entered their final stages in October 1958 when Seán Lemass left for Holland on the invitation of Mr Cornelis Verolme, owner of Verolme United, an important ship building concern at Rotterdam, the largest port on the European continent.

Verolme United Shipyards was a concern with a world-wide reputation. It had large shipyards in the Netherlands at Alblasterdam, Meusden and Rosenburg, which could build and repair vessels up to 50,000 tons. In a biography of Verolme, written by Ariëtte Dekker, Cornelis Verolme came from a farming background and rose to success without a university education, but had business acumen to succeed. By setting up technical training and recruiting personnel from competitors Verolme foresaw the growing need for qualified technicians to make his ventures have an excellent reputation. Verolme was also someone who went regularly amongst his workers and knew many of his employees by name.

Another Verolme company manufactured diesel engines, steam reciprocating engines and boilers at Rotterdam, whilst another company belonging to the same concern had a marine electrical plant at Massluis. An idea of the extent of Verolme United Shipyards’ activities was given in a Dutch publication in 1958 which gave a listing of ships under construction or on order in shipyards in the Netherlands. It showed that Cornelis Verolme’s three shipyards had more than any other single concern in Holland. It had on its order books 36 vessels, and of them 25 were tankers. One of them being, being built for the Dutch Esso Company, was of 46,000 tons; three more, for American owners, were of 47,000 tons; two were 45,000 tons and six were 19,500 tons. Prior to opening in Rushbrooke, he has successfully worked with the Brazilian government enabling him to build a shipyard in the Jacarecanga Bay near Rio de Janeiro.

The Southern Star newspaper in October 1958 records that Seán Lemass was accompanied by JP Beddy, Chairman of the Irish Industrial Development Authority to meet Cornelius Verolme. The visit enabled the Dutch Company to take over Cork Dockyard Ltd, Rushbrooke and to lease certain installations at Haulbowline for large scale ship building. The new yard was to concentrate on building large vessels and was not to be in competition with the existing ship-builders of the 26 counties. The Rushbrooke project was pitched to proceed in five stages and was to take six years to complete. Its cost, estimated at over £5 ½ million initially, was to met partly by the sponsors and partly by government loans. The first stage provided for the building of two new slipways at Rushbrook, enabling vessels of 50,000 tons to be constructed there. The existing yard was to be modernised and the drydock at Haulbowline was to be greatly enlarged to enable vessels of up to 47,000 tons to be repaired.  In the first stage, direct employment was to be provided for about 450 men with a quest to have 1,800 eventually on the payroll. 

There had been a ship-building concern in Rushbrooke since the nineteenth century. At that time Joseph Wheeler was one of a group of enterprising Cork businesses who financed the ship building industry in Cork Harbour. The period 1832-1860 was particularly prosperous in Cork’s shipping history and the house flags of many Cork’s shipping firms were to be seen on the masts of their vessels in all parts of the world. There were the shipyards of Hennessy and Brown at Passage West, and at those of Wheeler, Pike and Robinson at the head of the river. Numerous timber and iron ships were produced for home and foreign owners – ships which conformed to the highest international standards of the time and enhanced the reputation of Cork Harbour’s craftsmen. About the 1840s Joseph Wheeler also had a building-slip on the Cork river-bank. The Cork Directory of 1842-43 contains the following entry, Joseph Wheeler, Ship-builder. His shipyard was located near where the Port of Cork yard now stands. Wheeler built numerous timber-vessels for Cork based owners and foreign merchants. The Illustrated London News of 11 February 1860, carried a description of a 500 ton sailing ship from Wheeler’s Yard. The Aura was the largest ship to be constructed in Cork up to that date. She was the eighth vessel to be built for exporter Mr Harvey and was to be commanded by Corkman and seaman Captain Belchel.

Wheeler’s enterprise at Rushbrooke opened for shipbuilding in 1860. Between 1917 and 1920, the dock, then owned by the Furness Whithy Company, was enlarged. While no ships were built at Rushbrooke – with the exception of some 200 ton barges – very extensive alterations were undertaken and in some, major overhauls ships were almost literally rebuilt there. In the post war years, when the Cork Dockyard operated the yard, major conversion work was successfully done at Rushbrooke including the conversion of two ex Flower Class corvettes to passenger and cargo vessels for Mediterranean service and the conversion of an ex River Class frigate to a passenger and motor car ferry for the Dover-Calais service.

To be continued…`

Caption:

730a. Cornelis Verolme, July 1968 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 20 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 72) – Markets of Ferocity”

The first speaker at the opening ceremony of Whitegate on 22 September 1959 was the Chairman of the Irish Refining Company Mr D A C Dewdney, who was introduced by Dr R R Lawton, general manager of the company (continued from last week). Mr Dewdney spoke from a rostrum erected at the end of the Mechanical Services Hall and behind him was the triptych which was involved in the formal opening by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass. Surmounting the triptych was a painting by Soirle MacCana’s of the complete refinery.

In the course of his speech, and detailed in the Cork Examiner Mr Dewdney recalled that it while William Norton TD was Minister for Industry and Commerce that the real seeds of the refinery were sown and it was through Mr Norton’s persistence and persuasion that the three oil companies concerned – Caltex, Shell-Mex BP, and Esso – came to accept the Irish Government’s proposal that the refinery should be built. He voiced the debt of gratitude the Irish Refining Company gave to the Chairman of the Industrial Development Authority, Dr Beddy. From the moment, the Refinery Company had decided to expend £12million on the refinery, they had co-operation from all concerned – government departments, Cork County Council, the Cork Harbour Board, and the Electricity Supply Board. Mr Dewney continued; “How satisfactory, then, is it for me to be able to place on record the fact that we were able to have the refinery built exclusively with Irish labour, running at times into over 2,000 men, and this, in spite of the complexity and technical demands of such an operation”.

Mr Dewdney noted that the problem of recruitment of staff for operating the refinery had not been an issue. People with the requisite skills or potential ability became available in the area in large numbers. Irish materials were also used. The Lumus Company were the contractors. All the administration buildings were designed by Irish architect, Mr James Rupert Boyd Barrett and built by the Cork firm of builders, Messrs Hegarty and Sons. Boyd Barrett had nearly half a century of practice under his belt and had designed many major buildings throughout Ireland, including the Department of Industry and Commerce in Dublin, four new churches in Cork and ten new churches in the Diocese of Kerry. Dewdney remarked; “This was an Irish refinery in conception and in fact. It started a new industry for Ireland and would make a significant contribution towards the steady progress of the Irish economy. It would give added impetus to the drive towards greater industrialisation”. Dewdney also spoke of a greatly increased movement of shipping into the Port of Cork. At that time, the refinery was operating at an annual throughput of about one and half million tons. Taking crude oil in and products out represented a very considerable volume of shipping he detailed; “I do not believe there is any industry in the world where competition for markets is fiercer or more sustained than it is in the oil industry”.

In his speech, Minister for Industry and Commerce Jack Lynch praised the Refinery Company’s confidence in the developing economy of Ireland. This he alerted to was further illustrated in that the capacity of output of the finished product was about 50 per cent in excess of the contemporary Irish market of one million tons per annum. This was to provide for an expected continuing expansion in demand due to increased use of petroleum products in railways, shipping, jet aircraft and commercial and private motor vehicles, as well as in industry where industrial fuel oil was expected to be used more and more as an alternative to coal.

According to Jack Lynch, Whitegate Oil Refinery would give permanent employment to over 400 workers. These were to be drawn from many parts of the country and it would provide opportunities for Irish workers to acquire training and to obtain employment as skilled craftsmen and in scientific and technical work. He described that higher technical, technological and professional training programmes were to be provided in the local vocational schools, in technical institutes like that in Cork City and in University College Cork. He argued that as new forms of training would be required every effort would be made to construct proper facilities. On this point, he highlighted the fact that many of the technicians amongst the refinery employees were products of technical schools and more than 50 were graduates of Irish universities. Indeed, about this time, and as a side remark the committee of the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute through the leadership of William Ellis TD began to call for a new technology college, of which it was to take another decade or so before it came to fruition (Cork VEC Minutes).

Jack Lynch also noted of Cork Harbour as one of the world’s finest harbours. He referred to the new Verolme dockyard in the course of construction, the construction of Cork Airport, Irish Steel Holdings in the middle of the harbour were planning major expansion, and a new fertiliser factory was planned. These are also worthwhile to have a quick look at in terms of the enormous technical expertise needed to carry them out.

To be continued….

Caption:

729a. Cork Harbour, c.1900, from Queenstown/ later Cobh (source: Cork City Museum)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 13 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 71) – An Asprit de Corps”

In the Southern Star, 28 February 1959, reasons were detailed why the Irish Refining Co. Ltd choose Whitegate for the site of their refinery. Dr R R Lawton, General Manager of the Company said at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, that Cork Harbour was reasonably sheltered and in the initial stage of development it was possible to bring in tankers up to 35,000 tons. By dredging on a fairly modest scale tankers up to 45,000 tons could be brought alongside the Whitegate jetty. Further dredging should make it possible to bring in 65,000 ton tankers and it was for that size ship that the jetty was designed. Dr Lawton noted that generally speaking oil companies have the reputation of being good employers and the staff who joined a particular oil company tended to stay with it noting; “Each of the principal companies appear to develop a type of mentality peculiar to itself and have been able to imbue its staff with an asprit de corps, which is highly commendable”.

In the Southern Star, 25 April 1959, the tanker called Vasum is reported as the first super tanker to discharge at the refinery. Built in 1955 as the flagship of Shell Tankers Rotterdam, the 32,000 ton tanker was the largest to ever to visit Irish waters and she was the largest vessel of any type to tie up in Cork Harbour. Irish Shell Ltd were hosts to a large party of guests, which included many Irish industrialists and the captain of the tanker, J Sieben, who had just taken command of the vessel the previous Saturday. The captain was presented with two prints of old Cork, one depicting Cork Harbour, and the other, the Grand Parade about a hundred years previously.

Dr R R Lawton at a press conference in mid August 1959, held at the oil refinery, noted that all the products that the refinery was capable of manufacturing were being produced. They were butane gas for lighting and heating, propane gas for welding, premium and regular motor spirit, tractor vapourising oil, jet fuel for planes and diesel oil. At the time, the Calor Gas Company were building premises in Midleton for the distribution of butane and propane, which formerly were imported. The Kosane-gas Company, a Danish firm, were also seeking a site in Midleton. Their needs were supplied by Whitegate. The first shipment of petrol was sent to Cork on 7 August 1959, just two years after the first sod was turned. This was deemed very positive in view of bad winters in 1957 and 1958 and poor weather in the summer of 1958. Mr Lawton also noted that Whitegate was the only air cooled refinery in Europe. It has cost £11,000,000, and £3,000,000 of that was spent on Irish contracts and wages.

When Taoiseach Seán Lemass officially opened the £12 million oil refinery at Whitegate on 22 September 1959, he said the undertaking was as “modern and efficient as human skill and equipment could make it”. The Cork Examiner on 23 September 1959 remarked that the symbolic opening ceremony was marked by a celebration party attended by some three hundred guests. Lemass remarked that the establishment of a new major industrial undertaking was always an occasion for rejoicing; “the function celebrates a very significant development in the extension of Irish manufacturing industry. It is appropriate therefore, that so many representative people should be assembled here to wish success to the new enterprise…The industrial progress of Ireland is a long road, to which indeed there is no end, but an occasion like this when a new milestone is passed, we can look back on how far we have come, and in that way, find encouragement to face the problems that are still ahead, Whatever problems or new difficulties the future may bring they cannot be any greater than those we have already encountered and surmounted”.

The ceremony took place in the vast mechanical services building close to the processing area of the refinery. There, Seán Lemass turned the miniature valve locking together the small panels of a mahogany and silver triptych, the silver engravings of which symbolised the old and the new – the round towers and horse ploughs of yesteryear the refinery fractionating towers and the motor ploughs of today-and in which the centre panel showed the refinery jetty projecting into Cork Harbour towards Cobh.

The symbolic opening was the culmination of one of the largest celebration parties ever staged in the country by the directors of the Irish Refinery Co Ltd. The guests from overseas were flown from London to Dublin on the Monday and the entire Dublin and overseas party travelled to Midleton by train, the Cork contingent joining them at Kent Station. Mr Lemass arrived at Whitegate in a car, and there inspected a guard of honour of Gardai Siochana under Chief Superintendent J O’Dowd. At Midleton, the party entered a fleet of buses to complete their journey to the refinery. All along the route people lined the route to wave at the ten buses and private cars which went by.

To be continued…

Caption:

728a. The tanker, Vasum, 1962 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 6 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 70) – Whitegate Oil Ventures”

Following on from the use of oil in the 1950s in the ESB Marina Power station, the petroleum industry in Ireland at that time was such a prodigious business that it was the most costly import and the greatest source of customs duty except tobacco. The Leitrim Observer reported on 12 January 1957 that some 262 million gallons were imported at a cost of £13,667,000 (against approx £10 ½ million each for coal, motor-cars and wheat-maize). As an offset the government accepted the joint proposal of Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd., Caltex and Esso to erect and to operate a new £12million refinery at Whitegate (Cork), which was officially opened on 22 September 1959. Its annual capacity was initially proposed to supply Ireland’s total petroleum needs.

The situation in Ireland was hardly dissimilar from the rest of Western Europe, which, because of thinning coal seams and manpower shortage, persisting since the end of the World War, was forced to turn to oil to bridge the gap between the growing demand and the capacity of native resources to provide it. Ireland’s demand for electricity grew faster than the country’s water power and turf resources could produce it. Industrial production was expanding. The era of cheap and plentiful and supplies available were insufficient to meet all demands. Oil was the only alternative.

In 1938 the last pre war year for which supplies were available without limitation, Ireland consumed 73 million gallons of petroleum products. In 1955 consumption had risen to 262 million gallons. The growth of automotive transportation alone did not account for this increase in demand. Motor fuel, in 1938, represented 58 per cent of all petroleum products imported. In 1955 it represented only 31 per cent of imports. Much of the increase in Irish demand comes from new uses. In addition to industrial furnaces and the generation of electricity, demand for power on Ireland’s farms has been rising steadily over the past ten years. Irish agriculture, by American or British standards, was not highly mechanised. Nevertheless Ireland operated 27,000 agricultural tractors in 1955 compared with 700 in 1938. These 27,000 tractors use nearly 20 million gallons of fuel in a year. Consumption of both high octane and jet type aviation fuel was growing steadily each year and the modernisation and efficiency of our railway system was now regarded as depending on how fast it could be converted to oil fuel. Many industrial processes utilised the less well-known petroleum products – commodities varying as widely as town gas, church candles, motor tyres and paint. Petroleum had become an essential component of the economic life of the country and a stoppage of supplies would have brought transport and most of the country’s manufacturing industry to a complete stop.

On 29 March 1957, the Irish Independent reported that Dr J DeCourcy Ireland, Joint Honorary Secretary of the Maritime Institute of Ireland, in an introductory address at a film show given by the institute at the Cumberland Hotel, Dublin, commented on the importance of Whitegate Oil Refinery:

“The creation of the oil refinery at Whitegate, Co Cork could become as great a turning point in Irish maritime history as the foundation of Irish Shipping itself. The Oil Refinery could make Cork what it should be from its unique geographic position, the maritime hub of the Eastern Atlantic, with a complex of dry docks, free port facilities, up-to-date cargo and passenger arrangements, such as could ensure it the same rapid rise to eminence among the world’s ports that had in recent years been achieved by unknown ports like Gyndia [Poland], Vizagapatam [India] and Dakar [Senegal]”.

Eight months later the Southern Star on 23 November 1957 reported that on the refinery site the main activity was on Corkbeg Island where John Paul and Co, the Dublin contractors were engaged clearing the site and road building in preparation for Wimpey & Co to commence operations. Most of the bulldozers were concentrating on the clearing work and the new road was practically completed. Equipment for the sinking of piles for the seaward jetties was moving into position. A feature of the Whitegate traffic was the long trailer loads of steel piping being moved onto the main refinery site. The large pipes were to be used to pipe the crude oil from the tankers up to the refinery and the finished products down.

A few days later on 29 November, the Southern Star reported over 2,200 were working on the building of the new oil refinery at Whitegate. In addition the Refinery Company had already recruited a staff of 120 for the permanent running of the refinery, many of whom were being trained abroad but 43 of which were graduates of the National University. A large number of the 50 storage tanks being built by Tank Erectors Ltd. were now complete, each with a capacity of 23,000 tons. Work was going ahead on the jetty head and the dolphins for the berthing of the tankers. Piping had been laid along the jetty for incoming and outgoing oil. Four of the five towers were towed by sea from Liverpool had also been put in place.

To be continued…

Caption:

727a. Aerial view of Whitegate Oil Refinery (source: Cork City Library)