Milford Haven (harbour)

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This article is about the waterway, see Milford Haven for the town that takes its name from the harbour.
A map of Milford Haven harbour from 1946
A map of Milford Haven harbour from 1946

Milford Haven is a natural harbour in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. It is formed by the Pembroke River and the Daugleddau estuary, and winds west to the sea. As one of the deepest natural harbours in the world, it is a busy shipping channel, trafficked by ferries from Pembroke Dock to Ireland, oil tankers and pleasure craft. Admiral Horatio Nelson, visiting with the Hamiltons, described it as the next best natural harbour to Trincomalee in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon).

Milford Haven has the largest port in Wales[1]. It is also the fifth largest port in the United Kingdom[2]. Its association with the petrochemical industry started with the opening of the first oil terminal and refinery in 1960; unfortunately this coincided with a serious oil-spill from Esso Portsmouth, the first tanker to unload there. Since then, there have been numerous spills of varying magnitude, providing the port authority with a great deal of experience. Uniquely at the time, the harbourmaster instituted the principle of cleaning up first and allocating the blame (and the responsibility of paying for it) later. Two LNG Terminals are under construction in 2006. There are two large oil refineries nearby which represent one fifth of the United Kingdom's oil refining capacity.

This is the location of the Sea Empress oil spill in 1996, initially thought to be one of the most devastating oil tanker disasters the UK has ever seen. In the event, recovery has been surprisingly good, perhaps partly because of the very strong tides; the Torrey Canyon spill in 1968, affecting shores further south around southern Cornwall and northern France, was actually far more damaging - and Torrey Canyon had been heading for Milford Haven.

As a first stage of a wave power plant, there will be some testing at West Dale Bay[3].

  1. Oil pollution in a major oil port, Capt. G. Dudley, in Ecological Effects of Oil Pollution (ed. E.B.Cowell), Inst. Petroleum, London, 1971


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