This 1952 film created by the Shell Film Unit covers the construction of a large oil refinery at Stanlow in the United Kingdom that was constructed between 1947-1952. The footage covers the construction of the different elements of the refinery in stages, which includes distillation units, a large cooling tower, and underground water pipes. The film finishes with several shots of the refinery in operation, including workers working outside as well as operators in the control room.

0:09 title “Stanlow Story: A Shell Film Unit Production”, 0:19 Credits begin rolling, 0:43 Text about the challenges for refining after the war begins rolling across an animated map of the United Kingdom, 1:09 Stanlow is zoomed into on the map and transitions to a man measuring in a barren landscape, 1:32 heavy machinery driving over the barren landscape, 2:00 Several men in suits sitting and discussing at table, 2:13 Animation of construction of refinery on a map, 3:06 Sketches of each refinery element to highlight the process of construction, 4:03 huge group of day laborers working on the construction site, 5:04 workers shown blowing up TNT to create room for waterlines to refinery, 5:51 Workers underground tunneling, 6:24 Massive base of a cooling tower, 6:41 workers pouring concrete, 7:17 gigantic cranes being constructed, 7:58 large circular scaffolding for the cooling tower, 8:13 workers laying pipes, 8:58 Workers welding curved steel plates, 10:04 finished distillation unit with smoke coming out of smokestacks, 10:42 concrete being poured in construction of cooling tower, 11:32 progress on construction of oil storage tanks, 12:02 worker pushing bolts into steel, 12:36 tunneling crews placing TNT underground, 13:27 Aerial view of finished reformer, 13:59 view down from the top of the cooling tower over the whole construction site, 14:44 view over a large hole for the oil ship dock, 15:22 a large piece of finished pipeline being lowered into a ship canal, 16:08 Shell and British flag raised on top of finished cooling tower, 16:31 camera pans down the scaffolding inside the tower all the way to the bottom, 17:41 laborers working the rain, 18:43 laborers working on rail lines to run pipes below it, 19:28 Railway crane driving down the rails and lifting heavy railway beams, 21:42 train drives over freshly reconstructed railway tracks, 22:03 long train full of pipes driving slowly down some tracks, 22:14 Women preparing food in the canteen, 22:48 ominous footage from the inside of the cooling tower with workers putting in place materials at the bottom, 23:35 sequence of massive vessels being brought in by rail and on road, 25:00 workers stacking piles of fire bricks and then laying them, 26:10 pipes being slowly put on their supports, 26:29 different shots of the refinery and laborers working in the snow, 27:38 the final touches being put on the cooling tower, 28:41 laborer fitting bubble caps inside a distillation unit, 29:19 massive gas separator unit being lifted into place by a crane, 33:34 two men doing a final inspection of the underground water line, 34:10 water being let into the cooling tower for the first time, 35:15 employee climbing up a ladder on the outside of the cooling tower, 35:38 different scenes of the second distillation unit, 35:54 a large vessel being lifted into place by a crane with workers manually aiding in the placement, 38:26 worker putting in and calibrating the control instruments, 38:55 painters painting elements of the refinery, 39:20 operator walking through operating room full of gages, 39:44 an oil tanker docks at the oil dock, 40:20 different sequences of workers working at the refinery with gages shown and smoking smokestacks, 41:15 Operator examining different gages in the operating room, 41:44 Different sequences of the finished refinery operating, 42:38 Shell logo appears

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com