Churchill

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Churchill

Population	6,965,444
District(s)	Port West Port East North Carney South Carney
County	Carney
Province	New Britain
Country	United Kingdom
Post Town	Churchill
Postal Code	PC, NPC, SPC
Parliament District	Churchill East Churchill West Port Carney

Churchill is a moderately sized city in the United Kingdom of Oceania, located on the northern coast of the island province of New Britain. Churchill serves as a major port, especially for energy and fossil fuel goods such as petroleum, liquid natural gas, and coal. The 2006 estimated population is 6,965,444.

History

Founded in 1842 as Port Carney, after the wealthy Robert Carney who paid the majority of the cost for the expedition and settlement to New Britain, the city was situated on the western side of the Brighton Peninsula where the deep waters of the Alvis River Estuary combined with the calm waters of the Azazian Sea to offer a large anchorage for sailing ships arriving and departing from the new British colony.

Much of the city’s early history is traced to the development of Imperium, then Georgetown, to which the city was quickly linked by road and rail. While St. Brendans received most of the imports from Great Britain and the British Empire, many of the imported goods would then need to be transferred to smaller cargo ships which would travel to New Britain. However, with the mouth of the New Thames at the near opposite end of New Britain from St. Brendans, the immensely closer city of Port Carney was chosen to be the receiving port for domestic trade for the capital. Most traffic from abroad headed to Georgetown docked in the New Thames within the city or at the mouth in Thamesport.

Port Carney continued to function with the same purpose through the 19th and early-half of the 20th centuries. World War II, however, showed that the world’s next most critical resource would be that of oil—and with the reserves in the Azazian Sea then unknown the government funded the construction of a port specifically suited to the mass import of fuel: Port Carney.

After World War II, with work still underway, the city was renamed Churchill in honour of the British Prime Minister who had led the British Empire to victory. By 1956 the facilities were ready and the nationalised energy companies were convinced by the government to transfer their operations to the city.

Throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the city remained the primary hub of energy imports and by 1979 had evolved into the centre of the country’s energy network, with much of the regional distribution organised from within the city. By 1983, however, the discovery of massive oil and natural gas reserves in the Azazian Sea precipitated a decline in the importation of fossil fuels. Only the small surplus, first achieved in 1991, reversed the downward trend of the city’s growth.

In 2006, the city remains the centre of the energy import sector—and while still number two in terms of energy exports, the city of Port Hamptonshire has eclipsed Churchill in large part due to its aging infrastructure and uncompetitive geographic location, compared to the wider, deeper sea lanes of the coast of Hamptonshire.

Economy

An LNG terminal

As a port city, most of the city’s industry is directed towards the receipt of imported goods and of value adding processing, in the case of Churchill refinement of petroleum into gasoline and other end consumer products. With the gradual decline of the petroleum import industry, however, the city is attempting an economic renaissance by advertising its low-cost for petrochemical companies—the infrastructure, while dated is still functional and can be brought to modern standards through upgrades that are cheaper than brand-new facilities.

Additionally, as the terminus for the rail line north out of Imperium, the city remains an important link in the infrastructure of the eastern islands of the archipelago. Although the city lost out to nearby North Shores for the underwater rail link to Port George on Paxnova, numerous ferries operate out of Churchill to transfer vehicular traffic to Paxnova and the Vulcana Islands to the north and west of New Britain. Quence Railways is also rumoured to be investigating the potential of building a new high-speed rail link between Breningrad and the tourist resorts in North Shores, Brighton Beach, and across the channel in Port George. Churchill is reportedly being considered for a branching in the rumoured service with one line heading north to join the R1 at North Shores while the other would cross under the channel to arrive in Port George.