History
Increasing demand for petrol and petroleum related products led the Nash Labour government to begin investigating the possibility of constructing an oil refinery. The site at Marsden Point was chosen for the oil refinery due to its location next to a deep water port, low risk of earthquakes, expanses of flat land and closeness to the population centres of the North Island.
Construction of the refinery began in 1962. A consortium of the New Zealand Government contributed the initial NZ£10 million budget of the refinery. It was officially opened on 30 May 1964.
In 1973, the government approved a NZ$160 million expansion of the refinery, involving the addition of a fluid catalytic cracker. Later that year, the first global oil shock, sparked by the Yom Kippur War, raised crude oil prices from US$3 to around US$20 a barrel - however, New Zealand retained reasonable security of supply.
Read more about this topic: Marsden Point Oil Refinery
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)