The company behind the Whitegate oil refinery in Co Cork sank to a $22.5m (€19.8m) loss last year as the Covid pandemic strangled demand for fuel during lockdowns.

It compared to an $84.7m profit after tax in 2019.

The refinery is owned by Canada’s Irving Oil, which acquired the facility in 2016 from Philips 66. In 2019, Irving Oil completed the acquisition of the Tedcastle group in Ireland, which operates as Top Oil. Tedcastles was owned by the Reihill family.

Whitegate is Ireland’s only refinery and can process up to 75,000 barrels of oil a day. It employs about 230 people.

It processes crude oil from the North Sea and west Africa, producing transportation and heating fuels including petrol, diesel and kerosene. It supplies about 40pc of Ireland’s transport and heating fuel.

“Worldwide demand for oil products dropped significantly due to reduced international travel, work from home and lockdowns,” noted the directors of the company behind the refinery.

“Demand for road fuels in Ireland was down as much as 50pc during the Irish lockdowns in March and October,” it added. “The Irving Oil group was able to utilise its downstream supply chain, through Top Oil and its storage facilities in Amsterdam, to manage the demand shocks presented by the lockdowns.”

The accounts show that turnover at the company slumped 36pc to $1.1bn (€968m) last year.

Of its revenue in 2020, $776.7m was generated in Ireland and $379.3m from other locations.

In September, the managing director of Circle K Ireland, Gordon Lawlor, told the Irish Independent that fuel sales at its forecourts here had returned to pre-pandemic levels, lifted by the amount of staycationers during the summer.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office showed that car traffic volumes in Dublin during July were at 87pc of levels seen in July 2019. In regional areas, the levels were at 90pc of those seen in July 2019.

As people started to return to workplaces in September this year, the number of vehicle journeys on the country’s primary roads jumped by over 600,000, according to Transport Infrastructure Ireland.

However, the number of vehicle journeys is likely to slip again as people are advised again to work from home where possible due to an increase in the number of Covid cases.

The accounts for Irving Oil Whitegate Holdings also note that since February this year, the refinery has been involved in a project to produce renewable diesel by co-processing feedstock. It said that this has helped the facility to reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel it produces.

A recent media report in Canada noted that Irving Oil’s refinery in Newfoundland is responsible for the most carbon emissions amongst refineries in the country. It’s Canada’s biggest refinery.

That facility can process up to 320,000 barrels of oil a day.

However, data in the report also showed that the emissions from the plant are relatively low compared to other industries such as oil sands.