Shell Haven was a port on the north bank of the Thames Estuary at the eastern end of Thurrock, Essex, England and then an oil refinery.

Shell Haven appears on the 1596 edition of Saxton's Map 'Essexiae Comitat' Nova vera ac absaluta descriptio' It was possibly mentioned earlier.

[2] The site, historically also referred to as Shellhaven was originally an inlet on the north bank of the Thames, about a mile to the west of Canvey Island.

In 1895, the ammunition firm Kynochs purchased Borley Farm, to the east of Shell Haven Creek, to build an explosives factory.

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

A licence was obtained in 1912 to store petroleum at Shell Haven, in iron tanks, each containing not more than 4,000 tonnes.

Refinery operations began on a 40 hectares (99 acres) site in 1916 with a distillation plant which produced fuel oil for the Admiralty.

The facilities were to include: In 1950, the Crude Distillation Unit, the Doctor Treater and MP Boilers 3, 5 and 6 were commissioned.

In 1956, a catalytic reforming 'Platformer' was brought into service and in the same year, a petroleum chemicals unit to manufacture alkylbenzenes, the basis of household detergents.

In 1992, a major capital investment was completed, adding a 'Naphtha Minus' complex which contained an isomerisation unit, benzene recovery and gas turbine power generation.

The refinery delivered products by road and ship and UK oil pipeline network.

A team consisting of operations and engineering personnel were picked from the workforce to carry out decommissioning and oversee the demolition of the refinery.

Shell Haven Refinery was decommissioned and demolished, apart from The Bitumen Plant and some Storage Tanks.

In May 2007, DP World received outline planning consent for a major new deepwater port on the site, known as London Gateway.

In addition to the new port, the development will include one of Europe's largest logistics parks, providing access to London, the South East and the rest of the UK.

The Crude that was brought in by oil tankers was then pumped into 100,000 ton capacity tanks seen in the back of the photo.

The High Vacuum Unit was originally designed to process 3,500 tonnes/day of Kuwait Long Residue.

The Flare System was designed to deal with any excess gas produced by the process units.

When this happened steam at a preset ratio would be injected with the gas to allow it to burn cleanly.

The CWPH also provided water to a firemain, which was a pipeline that ran around the refinery to be used in the event of a fire.