Retail and wholesale customers of Phillips 66 joined the company for the 2016 Customer Conference. With a theme of 20/20 vision: growing together, the two-day event was held at the Powerscourt Hotel in Enniskerry on Ireland’s east coast.  The conference incorporated a mixture of business content, from specialist presentations and open forums, to business to business networking and a mini expo where a number of Phillips 66’ key suppliers and industry partners were on hand to share advice, offer demonstrations, and highlight new products and services available to Phillips 66’ customers.  All retail customers were given a copy of the company’s new ‘Guide to JET’s Retail Services’ brochure, which pulls together the company’s range of retail support services and partner offers available to JET dealers.  The event also offered customers a range of social activities, including informal networking opportunities, dining options including a celebratory dinner where the 2016 Proud to be Jet award winners were announced, and a range of outdoor pursuits including golf, fishing, falconry, and off-roading.  “Our conference was an ideal opportunity for us to share JET and Phillips 66’ vision for the future and highlight our investment and growth plans across our retail and wholesale businesses,” commented Mary Wolf, managing director of UK marketing. “We were able to demonstrate to our customers our continued commitment to building an organisation that is better aligned with the market and gives added focus to pricing and demand management.  “We also used the event as an opportunity to gain feedback from our customers, offering a number of breakout sessions so that our guests could choose what they wanted to hear about and discuss. Some of these sessions were open discussions where customers were encouraged to share their thoughts on any matters that they felt were important to their business. These were very well attended, with lots of customer participation and valuable feedback.”  As well as welcoming customers from across its UK network, Phillips 66 also invited industry experts Brian Madderson of the Petrol Retailers Association and Mark Askew of the Federation of Petroleum Suppliers to deliver presentations at the conference.  Also attending the event were Merril Boulton, editor of Forecourt Trader magazine, Brian Mandell, president, marketing at Phillips 66 and Nicolas Hamilton, JET’s brand ambassador, who delivered a speech about his personal journey to achieve his dreams and how he overcame many obstacles along the way. “We’re delighted that our customer conference was such a success and plans are already underway for our next event,” added Mary Wolf. www.phillips66.co.uk

At over 300 ft tall, about as high as Big Ben, the chimney could be seen on a clear day from as far away as the Dartford Crossing.  A second, taller chimney (367 ft high) is being retained to create an iconic landmark that recognises the history of the site On the 3rd November, a chimney and two distillation columns were demolished at the former Coryton refinery.  The demolition clears land to make way for Thames Enterprise Park, a new 400 acre industrial site located on the river Thames next to London Gateway and Thames Oilport.

In 2014, OFTEC helped secure a major win for the industry, challenging an EU standard which would have required oil heating appliances to meet NOx levels as low as 92mg/kWh by 2018. This level can only be achieved with a blue flame burner, such as this Riello RDB BLU, rather than the yellow flame burners currently in use Significant innovation means the oil heating industry should be ready to comply with the new lower NOx emission legislation on a range of appliances before the September 2018 deadline, says OFTEC.

As the FPS asks for ‘a raft of measures’ to help users of heating oil, the trade association has also called for the government to recognise the important service provided to the UK’s 1.25 million oil heating customers The Federation of Petroleum Suppliers (FPS) has called on chancellor Philip Hammond to use his Autumn Statement later this month to recognise the off-grid sector and assist the 1.25m mainly rural homeowners who are using heating oil.