16 October – OIL REFINERY BLOCKADED

Climate activists launch blockade of the UK’s busiest oil refinery
Hundreds of Crude Awakening protestors board trains to join the blockade

12 climate activists have blocked the sole access road to Coryton oil
refinery in Essex, the UK’s busiest oil depot and the largest supplier of
oil to London.

The all woman group, affiliated to the Crude Awakening, are locked to
immobilized vehicles on both lanes of the road, preventing oil tankers
from leaving the refinery to deliver oil to London.

Coryton refinery is 30 miles north east of London, near Stanford-le-Hope
in Essex[1]. In a coordinated move, around 500 protestors from the Crude
Awakening event in London boarded trains bound for Stanford-le-Hope, a
short walk away from the refinery. Previously announced plans to target
central London oil businesses were revealed to be a bid to outfox the
police, with Coryton having been the ultimate destination all along.

Terri Orchard, who is taking part, said:
“We don’t have a hope of tackling climate change if we don’t find a way to
start moving beyond oil. But Big Oil is relentless. From the Gulf of
Mexico to the Arctic to the Canadian tar sands, oil companies are
devastating local environments, trampling the rights of local communities,
and pushing us over the edge to catastrophic climate change.

We are here at the source of the problem, at the UK’s busiest oil
refinery, to stop the flow of oil to London. We’re here to put a spanner
in the works of the relentless flow of oil and to say no more. This place,
this whole industry, must become a thing of the past.”

This action is taking part of the global week of action called for by the
Climate Justice Action Network (CJA). From the Philippines to Argentina,
people from 22 different countries are this week taking action against
the fossil fuel industry[2].

The Crude Awakening is supported by a spectrum of direct action groups
including the Camp for Climate Action, Plane Stupid, Rising Tide, Space
Hijackers, Liberate Tate, Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, Earth
First! and the UK Tar Sands Network.

ENDS
For more information and interviews, call 07917742175 or email
crudeawakeningpress@yahoo.com
www.crudeawakening.org.uk
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Note to editors
[1] Coryton Refinery
The Manorway
Stanford-le-Hope
Essex SS17 9LL

On the A1014 off A13.

Coryton is owned by Petroplus and has a refining capacity of 10 million
tonnes per year. It is the UK's busiest oil refinery and supplies oil to
petrol stations, airports and factories throughout London and the
southeast. It is used by bp, shell and all of the oil majors.