Business leaders have voiced their concerns over the future of Grangemouth oil refinery following news the site will stop operating in 2025 and become a fuel import terminal.
Entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter said: “Grangemouth is a joint venture between INEOS, which is owned by Jim Ratcliffe, the guy who’s buying into Manchester United football club, and PetroChina, and they’re going to close the oil refinery because it’s just not competitive anymore.
“It’s not going to close completely. It’s going to be a fuel, import and distribution business, but there are about 400 jobs now at risk.”
He asked his co-host of the Go Radio Business Show, Lord Willie Haughey: “Do you think the anti-hydrocarbon likes of Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvey and Co have put this notion in Jim Ratcliffe’s mind in their decision making?”
Billionaire businessman Ratcliffe, who controls a 50 per cent stake in what is Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery through his chairmanship of INEOS, teamed up with the Chinese state-owned PetroChina organisation to handle the refining business.
Scotland’s Energy Secretary Neil Gray has said he will explore all opportunities to extend operations at Grangemouth beyond 2025 but has warned against “unrealistic expectations”.
He has vowed to work with colleagues in both the Scottish and the UK Government to look at the possibilities for extending the life of the refinery and maintaining industrial operations on the wider site.
Around 500 permanent staff currently work at Grangemouth, however the owners are said to have estimated only 100 would be needed to operate an import terminal.
Lord Haughey commented: “I hope, whatever any new development may look like, any new ideas on how they might want to run it means there will be many, many new jobs created.
“I hope, too, that there’s a balance struck so that there are opportunities for the 400 people already there maybe to retrain and continue to work there.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel