 This is a picture of the four steam naphtha reformers at Billingham, taken around 1963. Photograph courtesy of Fred Starr |
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
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This is a picture of the four steam naphtha reformers at Billingham, taken around 1963. Photograph courtesy of Fred Starr |
Does anybody remember Jack Parr or Bill Newbold from the Steam Reforming Plants in the early 1960s?
These were only the second ICI steam naphtha reformers to be built. The first were at Heysham in Lancashire. The construction of the brick chimney stacks must have taken as long as the rest of the plant. I think all future plants had steel chimneys. So this feature alone makes them historic in the development of chemical plants.
The reformers were numbered 1-4, no 1 being closest to the camera. The reformers used naptha, and later natural gas to produce feedstock gas for no 1 Methanol plant adjacent to the reformers. From this view the control room is hidden behind the reformers. The plant shut down in 1986