[3] The plant conversion, started in 2015, finished in 2019 with EUR 275 million of capital expenditure.
The Compagnie Francaise des Petroles held a 23.75% share in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which had struck oil in Kirkuk in 1927 and in 1934 had completed a pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea.
With the Fall of France, Syria and the pipeline terminal at Tripoli were under the control of the Vichy Government, but with Iraq on the side of the Allies, oil deliveries came to a halt.
France as a whole had a prewar refining capacity of 8,100,000 tons per year (168,750bpd), which fell to 1,800,000tpa (37,500bpd) in 1945 and recovered by 1947 to 6,680,000tpa (140,000bpd).
[11] In 1961 the two plants at Gonfreville (150,000bpd) and Martigues (136,000bpd) were the two largest in France (total 914,715bpd crude oil capacity).