Refinery closure puts jobs at risk

An OIL refinery which went bust is to close, putting around 850 jobs at risk, after administrators failed to find a buyer or the cash needed to keep it going.

The Coryton plant in Essex, which supplies 20 per cent of fuel in London and the South East, was put into administration earlier this year by its Swiss owner, Petroplus.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrators, said the site would be wound down over the next three months after the challenge of raising the £625 million needed to fund the refinery proved too much.

There are likely to be a “substantial” number of redundancies among the 500 workforce, PWC said, while around 350 contractors will learn their fate in the next few days.