UK Government officials visit Fawley

Policymakers from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) visited Fawley on 6 July following an invitation from ExxonMobil. The guests from the Downstream Oil Resilience Unit and International Energy Unit were pleased to have an opportunity to discover more about our refinery and petrochemicals complex, which provides employment for over 2,500 skilled employees and contractors.

Riccardo Cavallo, Fawley refinery manager, Nick Bone, chemicals manager, Michael Foley, hydrogen business development executive for our Low Carbon Solutions business, and Andrew Bassett, UK public and government affairs manager hosted the group of 11 officials. Stuart Neill and Harry Thorne from P&GA and Annuitant Steve Tolley were also on hand to represent the company.

As part of the visit the group took part in a mini-bus tour of the site, stopping at various locations for briefings, which helped to bring our integrated manufacturing process to life and demonstrate the high value employment we have provided for over 70 years.  

Andrew Bassett said: “Many of the guests had never visited a refinery or chemicals plant before.  We were able to highlight Fawley’s critical role in ensuring UK fuel supply resilience, the importance of the fuel and chemical products ExxonMobil makes and distributes, and ongoing work such as the FAST project.”

The visit was also an opportunity to discuss the government policies needed to help enable ExxonMobil’s Low Carbon Solutions projects in the UK, including the possibility of hydrogen manufacturing and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects at Fife and at Fawley, the latter of which would potentially be part of a wider low carbon ‘Solent Cluster’ under the UK Government’s funding competition.