Coryton refinery closure brings to end love-hate relationship with plant

A glowering mass of metal pipes and burnished towers, Coryton oil refinery has an ambivalent relationship with the neighbouring community of Canvey Island, across Holehaven creek.

Residents campaigned successfully against further petrochemical installations in the 1970s, but Coryton has employed thousands of people from Canvey and the surrounding area in south Essex since it was built in 1953.

For one of Canvey's most famous sons, it has been an inspiration. Wilko Johnson was a founding member and lead guitarist of Dr Feelgood, the blues-soaked rock trailblazer for the punk explosion three decades ago. He says he will miss the threatened refinery as he stares at Coryton across the water, yards from where the band posed for its first photoshoot against the imposingthe industrial backdrop.

"It is part of Canvey Island, even though it is across the creek. When you are trying to put the landscape into music, or lyrics, that refinery is what I am thinking of," says Johnson, who referenced Coryton in the opening line – "Stand and watch the towers burning at the break of day" – of All Through the City on Dr Feelgood's debut album, Down by the Jetty.

In one of the most memorable sections of Oil City Confidential, the Julien Temple documentary about Dr Feelgood, Johnson quotes Paradise Lost – "darkness visible" – as he attempts to describe the influence of Coryton on his songwriting, the captivating sight of the refinery at dawn.

In daylight it is less dramatic, looking every inch a piece of infrastructure that urgently needs a refit and, with no wealthy buyers forthcoming, will be wound down from this week with the potential loss of up to 850 jobs.

The 64-year-old Johnson, who left Dr Feelgood in the 70s and is now a solo artist, lives in nearby Southend. He says he will miss the plant if it shuts, though he fought against plans to build more refineries in the early 70s. "I would be sad. If it is going to be dismantled, whatever they put there they should bear in mind how marvellous that skyline is. If that goes, Canvey Island is going to lose its western horizon."

The greater impact, however, is economic, not cultural. Wayne Petty, a production operator at Coryton and an island resident, says his father and grandfather worked on the site. "I've lived on Canvey Island all my life, well and truly in the shadow of the refinery. It has in one way or another provided income to support my family at some point across three generations."

Colleagues have similar links. "Like myself, there are many children of past and present employees who depend on the refinery for their income." Local businesses such as sandwich shops also rely on Coryton for their livelihoods.

In a statement last week the Department for Energy and Climate Change attempted to put a positive gloss on Coryton's imminent collapse, announcing with jarring optimism that the workforce was "highly skilled and well-positioned to take advantage of new opportunities". A spokesman added that a Jobcentre Plus "rapid response" service would help employees.

"My job as an alkylation unit operator is extremely specialised, and there are many of my colleagues who have never done anything else," says Petty. "I think it's highly irresponsible of the government to ignore this fact and intimate that Coryton workers will easily find jobs elsewhere. There are certainly no other alkylation units in the area."

Some hope could be offered by the £1.5bn project taking shape behind Coryton, the London Gateway port and logistics park that will dominate the landscape when it opens next year, promising up to 12,000 jobs.

Coryton's administrator, Stephen Pearson of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is optimistic the refinery can be reborn as a storage terminal, but that will require far fewer jobs, and not the specialist roles filled by Petty and his colleagues.

Refining converts crude oil into marketable products, top of the list being petrol and diesel. Pearson says in the four months he has been running Coryton, margins have been "very poor", a reflection of a market that has been hammered by competition from Asia.

"One day the margins will be positive, and on another they will be negative," he says. "But throughout the period they have been lower on average than last year. And last year was a nadir."

The weekend brought speculation that another main refinery in the UK, Milford Haven in Wales, will also shut because of the forces assailing the industry.

Coryton's rivals are sympathetic to a business that has been brought low by the bankruptcy of its parent, Petroplus. Volker Schultz, the chief executive of Essar Oil UK, owner of Stanlow refinery on the Wirral, says Coryton has been hit by a perfect storm.

British drivers are using more fuel-efficient cars which has cut demand and there has been growing use of biofuels, which do not need refining. To compound this, big refineries being built in the Middle East and Asia – Essar is an Indian conglomerate – have created a glut in capacity.

Shultz says: "In the north Atlantic basin [east US, UK and northern Europe] alone, you hear that 10 to 20 Corytons would have to shut down to get the north Atlantic market into a balanced state. There is quite a considerable amount of overcapacity."

Johnson's music will be a timeless reminder of Coryton if, as expected, it goes. For the first time in more than 30 years, he drives up to the refinery gates – a long way from Canvey by road – and observes an installation that has dominated the area for half a century. "The closer you get, the uglier it gets," he says. "But just across the creek it is a thing of beauty … It pisses over the Pompidou centre."