| Admin History | Manchester Oil Refinery Limited at Trafford Park, Manchester was founded in December 1936 by Dr Georg Tugendhat and Dr Franz Kind. Tugendhat provided the knowledge of industry and economics while Kind contributed ten years experience of the oil and chemical industry. They set up independently owned oil refineries in Antwerp, Trieste and Manchester, capitalising on new developments in refining techniques and well chosen locations to compete against the major oil companies whose refineries were part of an integrated structure. The Antwerp refinery was built as a distillation unit, Trieste as a complete refinery, and Manchester for the production of lubricating oils and transformer oils etc. Manchester Oil Refinery Limited was a pioneer for the Catrole refining process in Britain, a process that was invented by Prof. Charles Weizmann and Dr Ernest Bergmann. This led, in 1945, to the incorporation of a special design and development company, Petrocarbon Ltd. A third company, Petrochemicals Ltd, was set up to operate the new Catrole plant. Construction of the plant began in 1948 on a 120 acre site alongside the Manchester Ship Canal and Partington Gas Works. The plant went on stream in 1952 but the Petrochemicals project was hit by a slump in the market for some chemicals, spiralling construction costs, and difficulties in training operatives to work the plant. Tugendhat and Kind retired from their positions as managing directors of Petrochemicals Ltd, and the company was sold to Shell in 1955. Tugendhat remained managing director of Manchester Oil Refinery (Holdings) Ltd, and Petrocarbon Ltd continued as an independent firm as Petrocarbon Developments Ltd. |