The formal takeover by the Tosco Corporation of the Whitegate refinery on Cork Harbour and the Whiddy oil terminal in Bantry Bay passed almost unnoticed last week.
Tosco itself is about to be taken over by Philips, one of the world's largest oil corporations. Mr Paddy Power, managing director of the newly created Irish Petroleum Company Ltd, says Philips will honour all the various elements of the $100 million Tosco acquisition.
This is good news for the 167 employees of the former Irish Refining Company, the 43 workers who were employed at Bantry Bay Terminals and the 25 Dublin-based staff, all of whom operated under the aegis of the Irish National Petroleum Corporation.
According to Mr Colin T. McDermot, a Tosco spokesman in Connecticut, the Philips deal should be concluded by the end of September, but under US stock exchange rules Tosco is not allowed to say much more. In the meantime, he says, Tosco's plans for the two Co Cork facilities will go ahead.
Mr Power has told The Irish Times what these plans would entail. For a start, the Whitegate takeover may mean a pay-out of up to £30,000 for the employees under an employee share option scheme which is administered by a trust.
Of more long-term benefit for job security is Tosco's commitment to an investment of a further $100 million in the facilities over the next five years. Whitegate will be upgraded and linked directly to Tosco's refining activities on the east coast of the US. The refinery will have a new and strategic role as part of a major player in the oil industry.
For the Whiddy terminal, the takeover is perhaps the best news since the awful events of January 9th, 1979, when an explosion and fire destroyed the Betel- geuse, a fully laden oil tanker which was lying alongside the terminal jetty. Fifty people died in the disaster.
The tank farm on Whiddy Island, where the Republic's national oil reserves are held, is to be given a new lease of life, Mr Power says. The 14 giant tanks are to be refurbished and upgraded, creating up to 60 temporary jobs. Once again Whiddy Island will have a strategic role as a shipment centre, feeding the US east coast refining system.
Under EU legislation member-states are required to hold strategic reserves equivalent to 90 days' oil consumption. The National Oil Reserves Agency will continue to administer the strategic supplies and has entered into an agreement with Tosco to maintain storage space at Whiddy, which has a total capacity of 8.5 million barrels.
The former INPC employees have already signalled their approval of the Tosco deal, with 80 per cent recently voting in favour of the new owners.