DOZENS of climate activists were arrested today after blocking 10 major oil refineries in protest against the government’s continued expansion of fossil fuel projects. 

More than 100 Extinction Rebellion and the Stop Oil Coalition protesters launched co-ordinated actions in the early hours of this morning, blocking off roads to oil depots around London, Southampton, Birmingham and Warwick. 

ExxonMobil UK, one of the country’s largest privately owned underground oil pipeline distribution networks, said that it had shut down three of its sites.

The Just Stop Oil coalition said that it was calling on the government to end its “genocidal policy” of expanding Britain’s oil and gas production.

“Ordinary people can no longer afford oil and gas, it’s time to just stop oil,” the group said. 

“It’s funding war and killing people in the global South, while destroying the future for young people everywhere.”

Protesters clambered onto oil tankers and sat on roads to block trucks leaving terminals in Grays, Essex, as well as the Buncefield oil depot in Hemel Hempstead and an Esso site near Heathrow in west London. 

Esso fuel terminals in Birmingham and the Kingsbury Oil Terminal and a BP oil depot in Warwickshire were also targeted. 

Thirteen people had been arrested this afternoon at several locations in Thurrock, according to Essex Police.

And six were arrested in Birmingham by 11am, West Midlands Police said. 

One of the protesters, Francis Brewer, said: “I think we’ve gone so far now with the climate crisis — and had so many years of criminal inaction from our government — that we have to start taking these drastic measures.”

The action comes as Extinction Rebellion prepares for another wave of protests in the capital from April 9, which it said would be the “most disruptive ever.” 

The group’s spokesman, Andrew Sith, said: “The actions happening in London will be mass participation on the streets, and there’ll be an open invite for people to come and take part in those actions.

“In the tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, we will disrupt ‘business as usual’ until the government and big business make change. We need everyone to join us.”

The daily protests will start next week in London’s Hyde Park, where the group will be offering non-violent direct action training to those wanting to get involved, Mr Smith said.