It was a part of the Port of London and was the last of the three major refineries on the Thames Estuary to remain in operation, following closure of Shell Haven and BP Kent.

Output was delivered by road, sea and rail, and it was linked to Stanlow Refinery in North West England by the UK Oil Pipeline (UKOP).

In 1921, the site and CLR were taken over by coal merchants Cory Brothers Ltd of Cardiff to build an oil storage depot, with Kynochtown renamed Coryton.

In 1977, work started on an extension to the refinery including a hydrogen fluoride alkylation unit to produce more gasoline.

[5] In 1978, about 1.5 million tonnes of oil and refined products were stored in the refinery tank farm, and about 800 people worked on the site.

[6] The alkylation unit was commissioned in late 1981 and included a water spray system to dissolve any releases of hydrogen fluoride.

[13] In 2012 the refinery was planned to be turned into a diesel import terminal by Vopak, Shell and Greenergy, with an initial capacity of 500,000 cubic metres (18,000,000 cu ft).

[7] In 2005, BP acquired a fleet of three new 32 m tugs for towing, mooring, fire-fighting and pollution control at the plant.

In 2000, the principal sources of crude oil for refining at Coryton were: North Sea (60%); Middle East (20%); Africa/Mediterranean (10%); and Russia (10%).

A moat around the site collects run-off, this was taken to the water treatment plant and was oxygenated prior to discharge into the Thames.

[18] Despite the scale of the blast, which was reported to cause buildings to shake 14 miles (23 km) away,[19] there were no physical injuries and only partial disruption to the refinery.