The Cressier Refinery

The Cressier refinery is located on a 74-hectare site near Neuchâtel in the French part of Switzerland. It was originally commissioned in 1966 by Shell and bought by Petroplus in May 2000. The refinery is an integrated atmospheric-vacuum distillation, visbreaking and thermal-cracking refinery with a name plate capacity of 68,000 barrels per day.

Since we acquired the refinery we upgraded the site to meet the specification requirements of the European Commission's Oil II program. The refinery's production of gasoline and diesel already meets the E.U.'s 2009 mandatory 10ppm sulfur limit. In addition we have begun to produce EcoClean, a grade of heating oil with less than 50ppm sulphur and nitrogen.

The refinery is one of only two refineries in Switzerland. It accounts for approximately 25 %, by volume, of all refined products sold in Switzerland. The refinery's crude oil supply arrives via a direct pipeline from the marine shipping terminal in Fos-sur-Mer in the south of France.

The Cressier refinery's light and middle distillates such as gasoline, diesel, blended diesel and jet fuel are sold predominantly in Switzerland. We typically sell the majority of our output to oil majors, resellers, industry and retail petrol stations.

Products are shipped from the Cressier refinery's own 12-bay on-site truck-loading rack and railcar-loading facilities. This enables a stable distribution into the Swiss market.