UK Grangemouth refinery shut

18-Oct-13

Ineos has closed the 210,000 bpd refinery and petrochemicals complex and may only re-open it if workers accept new working terms. Ineos says Grangemouth has made losses for the past four years. Britain may shut its second major oil refinery in just two years in the fallout from a bitter labour dispute at the Grangemouth refinery that provides most of Scotland's fuel and is crucial to the pumping of crude oil from the North Sea, as Reuters. The dispute at Grangemouth, a valued part of Scotland's infrastructure, highlights the problems confronting Europe's refining industry due to rising competition from new plants in Asia and the Middle East and dwindling demand at home. "The plant is shut down until Tuesday. It is not operating. Tomorrow we will be putting a proposal to the workforce and we are giving them the weekend to decide and expect a response on Monday," an Ineos spokeswoman said. "We'll review with stakeholders what the workforce says on Tuesday and whether it re-opens depends on their response," she added. A company statement had earlier said Grangemouth was financially distressed and that the industrial action called by the Unite union had inflicted significant further damage. A source familiar with the situation said that it would take around three weeks to get the plant back to full operations, whenever a decision was made.