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Once the site for the oil refinery has been identified, the work begins. The land is surveyed, grass is burned off and the land is cleared. Meanwhile, ‘the dream comes true in miniature’ as a model layout of the refinery and site is shown. The camera pans across model hostels, pump stations, boiler houses, furnaces, generators and distillation units. Bulldozers clear the land for access roads; workers erect boundary fences and temporary storage buildings; and ditch diggers dig the trenches where cables are to be laid. The shipping docks – once used to export wool and wheat – now bring in iron for construction.
Curator’s notes
The clearing of land for this large scale development is framed as a romantic story of progress and development. Phrases such as ‘the dream comes true in miniature’, ‘a river of vehicles’ and ‘the whine of winches straining under massive columns of iron’ all serve to tell this tale of achievement. The ‘dream’ analogy – used consistently throughout the documentary – comes from part of the speech given by JW Platt, the managing director of the Shell Group of oil companies on the plant’s opening in 1954.
