BOCM Pauls site at Selby, North Yorkshire

Originally uploaded as No.2 of a jolly selection of Guesswhere UK puzzles.

This is a view of the BOCM Pauls factory at Selby, next to the Selby-York railway line which bisects the BOCM site.

BOCM stands for 'British Oil and Cake Mills' and dates back to the early years of the 20th century, when it was known as the 'Olympia Mills' at this location.

The extraction of vegetable oils from seed and grain to make animal feeds has been a prime manufacturing process at this site and is carried out by Unitrition International, a subsidiary company of BOCM Pauls. The main process used is solvent extraction using hexane which is then recovered by distillation. The distillation condensers are cooled by groundwater pumped from the Sherwood Sandstone aquifer at a depth of about 60 metres. In the past, over-abstraction of groundwater has caused compaction of the overlying Drift sediments with subsequent ground subsidence and deformation.