During the late 1960’s the Shell Oil refinery at Stanlow, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain sufficient crude oil supplies. The problems were due to the restrictions placed on oil takers by the fast tides and busy nature of the Mersey Estuary. At the time, to reduce cost, the world was changing to larger oil tankers which could not be accommodated at the Stanlow offloading points.
The solution to this problem was to build a floating oil receiving station just off Amlwch in 1972. Oil from the station was pumped to a shore station at Amlwch port. From here it was pumped to a holding station at Rhosgoch and then onwards via underground pipes to the oil refinery at Stanlow.
The single buoy mooring (SBM) enables a tanker to swing around a single point with the tide. The one at Amlwch was 21 metres in diameter and weighed 500 tonnes.
Oil from the tanker was pumped off via a 40-inch diameter pipe to the Amlwch shore station. At the shore station booster pumps were used to transfer the oil to the inland station at Rhosgoch.
To service the buoy two small vessels, the Afon Alaw and Afon Briant were situated in new storage terminals which were built on the site of the old ship yard in Amlwch Port.
These pens were available at all states of the tide and allowed the tugs to provided 24 hours’ assistance to tankers who were mooring at the SBM. An office suite with large viewing windows was also built.
From the inland station at Rhosgoch the oil was pumped via two 36-inch diameter pipes to the oil terminal at Stanlow 127 kilometres away. The pipe line had to cross some of the most beautiful country in Wales and special precautions were taken to ensure that the countryside was returned to it former condition after the pipe line had been laid.
The first tanker was off loaded via the SBM in March 1974. The gigantic project was a success. However, by the mid-1980s the use of large crude oil tankers was again diminishing and the terminal was closed by 1990. The associated inland tank farm at Rhosgoch was shut at the same time. After closure, Shell cleared the tank farm site and it has since passed through a number of owners and redevelopment ideas rather than being reused as an oil terminal.
Shell established a legacy fund from the former terminal operations which contributed to the Isle of Anglesey Charitable Trust, providing long‑term community benefit rather than restarting oil use on the site.
The rhosgoch site was transferred from Shell to the Isle of Anglesey Charitable Trust and later marketed for redevelopment as a strategic 200‑acre site near Amlwch, identified within Anglesey’s “Energy Island” and enterprise zone plans
By 2025 it had been sold for around £18.5m to Rhosgoch Property Ltd, a Stena Line subsidiary, with stated intentions to use it for employment‑related development linked to the Anglesey Freeport and wider energy/industrial projects rather than oil storage.
At the same time the buildings in Amlwch port which were part of the port infrastructure are now part of a regeneration project involve refurbishing existing harbour buildings and creating business units.
Now Ambition North Wales has approved the Business Justification Case to refurbish the
site as part of a £10.4million investment to regenerate key sites and support long-term
economic growth in Amlwch and across the region.
Led by Anglesey County Council, the project will also see ten business units built at the
nearby Industrial Estate. Together, these developments are projected to support 95 new
jobs, create 2,300m² of new commercial floorspace and boost the North Wales economy
by £33.9million by 2036.
The proposed funding streams include £6.994m from the North Wales Growth Deal
alongside funding from the Welsh Government, Isle of Anglesey County Council and the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)