BREAKING: Just Stop Oil begin blockade of England’s largest oil refinery
Just Stop Oil has begun a blockade of the Fawley oil refinery, the largest oil refinery in England.
The Fawley oil refinery is located in Fawley, Hampshire, a village which is located on the coast of Southampton Water and is located around 20 kilometres away from Southampton by road. It is the largest oil refinery in England and provides 20% of England’s oil refining capacity. It is operated by Esso, a subsidiary of the American oil giant ExxonMobil.
On Monday, Just Stop Oil announced that they would hold a protest at the Fawley refinery this afternoon to take their demands for decarbonisation straight to the oil industry, a fortnight after they took their demand to the Green Party (which is part of the governing coalition) by occupying the party’s headquarters. After Just Stop Oil activists gathered outside the refinery earlier this afternoon, a dozen of them have glued themselves to the roads which lead to the refinery, stopping traffic from being able to reach the refinery and thus effectively blockading the refinery. As a consequence, work at the refinery has been temporarily halted.
While Just Stop Oil are mostly known for high-profile protests which have seen them disrupt sports matches and plays, throw soup on famous paintings, and spray paint Stonehenge, and while their most well-known road blockades have seen them blocking important main roads and motorways such as the M25 motorway which are used by many members of the general public instead of roads which are designed to serve just an industrial site, this is not the first time they have led a blockade targeting the oil industry. In April of 2022, they blockaded multiple oil terminals in an effort to disrupt fuel deliveries and to paralyse the UK’s fossil fuel infrastructure. Those blockades saw Just Stop Oil protesters glue themselves to roads, climb on top of oil tankers, lock themselves to pipes, and take other action to force oil terminals to halt production. The blockades led to some short-term disruption of fuel deliveries and saw hundreds to thousands of those taking part in the blockades arrested. Some of them have subsequently been prosecuted and convicted.
At the moment, Just Stop Oil have limited themselves to blockading the roads and forcing the refinery to temporarily shut that way. They hope that, by forcing the largest oil refinery in England to halt production, they will convince the government to give in to their demands by performing a u-turn on oil and gas and committing to not issuing any new licences for the extraction of oil and gas, and to committing to a rapid decarbonisation programme which would see the UK end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by the end of the decade.
Not everyone agrees with Just Stop Oil and their tactics, however. Some politicians have been calling for Just Stop Oil to be designated a terrorist organisation, and it seems that tensions are running high at the Fawley refinery too: while the Just Stop Oil protesters I have spoken to are adamant that the threat posed by climate change justifies them taking this action to force an oil refinery to shut down, some of the workers at the site are angry at the protesters, with a few accusing the group of being a terrorist organisation. Despite this, the protest has remained peaceful so far.