ConocoPhillips has confirmed that there is currently no planned maintenance underway at its Humber oil refinery in the north east of England, and operations are running as normal.

Earlier in the week Jet retailers had been alerted to a release by business news agency Bloomberg that
there were plans to shut down some of the processing units in the ConocoPhillips oil refinery soon, according to the UK’s Environmental Agency.

ConocoPhillips released the following statement: "ConocoPhillips corporate policy does not allow us to disclose any maintenance schedules in advance or proprietary.  When a business unit is undergoing maintenance we would be able to confirm this, but we would not give out specific details of units being maintained or the duration of."

However one retailer was told that annual planned maintenance programme had been scheduled for many months, and stocks had been built up in anticipation, and that it was not expected that the planned maintenance would affect Jet dealers in any way.

It was felt the alert became more newsworthy as the UK fuel retailing industry remains under threat of a fuel tanker driver strike, which has already caused disruption through panic-buying before Easter. Talks between the tanker driver union Unite and conciliation service ACAS began on April 4 and are ongoing.

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