During the late 1960s the Shell Oil refinery at Stanlow, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain sufficient crude oil supplies. The problems were due to the restrictions placed on oil takers by the fast tides and busy nature of the Mersey Estuary. At the time, to reduce cost, the world was changing to larger oil tankers which could not be accommodated at the Stanlow offloading points. The solution to this problem was to build a floating oil receiving station just off Amlwch in 1972. Oil from the station was pumped to a shore station at Amlwch port. From here it was pumped to a holding station at Rhosgoch and then onwards via underground pipes to the oil refinery at Stanlow. The single buoy mooring (SBM) enables a tanker to swing around a single point with the tide. The one at Amlwch was 21 metres in diameter and weighed 500 tonnes. The first tanker was off loaded via the SBM in March 1974. The gigantic project was a success. However, by the mid-80s the use of large crude oil tankers was again diminishing and the terminal was closed by 1990.