Overview of Mossmorran

The site of a petrochemical processing plant on the edge of a mossy tract of land to the south of Cowdenbeath, W Fife.

Liquid gas is piped to Mossmorran from the North Sea, broken down to form ethane and then converted into ethylene which is a basic hydrocarbon 'building block' of the petrochemical industry. Developed since 1985 by the Shell/Exxon partnership, the site's products are piped 3 miles (4.8 km) to the Braefoot Bay Marine Terminal and fed into tankers and gas carriers for markets on the Continent and in the USA. Ethane and ethylene are also piped to the BP plant at Grangemouth on the S shore of the Firth of Forth and into the UK pipeline grid.

The original plant was built to handle liquids extracted from Shell/Exxon's Brent Field and other discoveries in North Sea waters east of Shetland. Later expansion equipped Mossmorran to handle hydrocarbons transported in pipelines serving fields in the central North Sea.

A survey in 1990 showed that the combined Mossmorran-Braefoot Bay facilities together injected more than £35 million a year into the Scottish economy.