by Will Jones
Scotland’s last oil refinery is to close with the loss of more than 400 jobs despite assurances from Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband, giving the lie to claims about Net Zero jobs and a “just transition”. The Telegraph has more.
When Sir Keir Starmer visited Scotland days after becoming Prime Minister, he sought to reassure workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery by claiming that saving their jobs was a top priority.
What has happened since then, however, has been far from comforting.
After learning their jobs were at risk in December 2023, employees at the PetroIneos refinery in Falkirk – which produces 80% of Scotland’s petrol – were told last September that the site would close with the loss of more than 400 jobs.
Bosses blamed the decision on the costs of operating Scotland’s last refinery, as well as Britain’s plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035.
Still, many employees were left stunned. As well as Sir Keir, both Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, had given strong assurances they would seek to save the sprawling facility, which has been a fixture in Grangemouth since 1924.
“I think everyone was shocked that the announcement came when it did,” says “Jack”, an employee who started as an apprentice at the refinery and has been there for more than a decade.
The worker, who does not want to give his real name, adds: “The refinery has been around for more than 100 years and it’s part of the community.
“There are people who are the third or fourth generation of their family to work there, others who have been there for 40 years.
“Lots of people here saw it as a job for life, and Labour had said that oil and gas was still going to be around for a long time. So it’s been very worrying – and there’s a lot of anger and frustration.”
The episode has raised troubling questions about the Government’s repeated promises of a “just transition”, where no workers in the oil and gas industry will be left behind as Britain phases out fossil fuels in favour of green energy.
Sir Keir has repeatedly vowed that Labour will not repeat the Thatcher government’s “callous” decision to shut down Britain’s remaining coal mines in the 1980s without ensuring workers had alternative jobs to go to.
“The effects of that are still felt in communities across the country and never, ever again must we make that mistake,” the Prime Minister said in a 2023 speech.
Yet if Grangemouth is the first big test of this policy, local people say the Government is failing badly.
Cliff Bowen, a union convenor for Unite who has worked at Grangemouth for 30 years under Ineos and the site’s former owner BP, is furious about the failure to prevent the refinery’s demise and the lack of action to provide it with an alternative future.
What particularly angers his members, he says, is that the closure will not even dent overall global carbon emissions, of which the UK makes up less than 1%.
Now, Ineos and its partner PetroChina have said the site will become an import terminal for bringing in refined fuels from abroad.
“The reason we ended up with final closure is because there’s not been any political will to get behind it,” says Bowen.
“If you can’t get a just transition at Grangemouth, you have no chance elsewhere. No chance. Because what else is it you’re looking for? We’ve got the skills, we’ve got the geography, we’re blessed with the resources.
“But what we’re going to do is just completely and utterly give all that up on the back of some campaign, this altar of net zero that they all seem to worship in government – with no plan for jobs.”
He adds: “Why would you continue to import from foreign regimes and prop up their economies, to the destruction of your own communities?”
Worth reading in full.
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It’s an unholy mess. Reeves’ budget has tanked the economy and wiped out any available fiscal headroom. So, it’s spending cuts, higher borrowing and/or yet more taxes. All these job losses – Grangemouth, Port Talbot, Scunthorpe, Luton etc etc etc – switch things round from solid revenue collection to… increased welfare payouts. And now defence has shot to the top of priorities – allegedly. I don’t believe it, myself.
They want to defend another nation’s borders while leaving our own border wide open?
Ministers mull GB Energy spending cuts in blow to Ed Miliband
The decision to axe funding for GB Energy is likely to infuriate Ed Miliband, who is already having to toe the line following the government’s decision to back expansions at Heathrow, Gatwick and London Luton Airport.
https://www.cityam.com/ministers-mull-gb-energy-spending-cuts-in-blow-to-ed-miliband/
Labour has again confirmed no new oil or gas drilling – baby.
5th March 2025
Government to unleash the North Sea’s clean energy future
this plan backs industry to make North Sea a world-leader in offshore industries, such as hydrogen, carbon capture and wind
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-unleash-the-north-seas-clean-energy-future
I’ve been through the redundancy mill a couple of times, but the difference then was you could find another job. With a fast shrinking overtaxed economy that option looks remote to say the least.
The “transition” is really just emasculation. Too many gits in charge in Britain.
Gits
Some of them are slags, some of them are utter b’stards etc etc.We have no shortage of terms for them – some even want to privatise suicide. Now, they are utter scum.
Britain’s net zero plans are creating green jobs. The problem is that these jobs are in China, not Britain.
Exactly.
And they’re not “green”.
The refinery has been losing money hand over fist for ages and the plant is almost at the end of its working life and needs to be replaced. Locally some of us wonder who is actually calling the shots – Ineos or Petrochina?
Also, nearly all of the downstream plant will continue to operate according to the operators.
Carbon taxes… Isn’t that obvious? That’s what they were invented for.
If lizard aliens secretly came to earth and were working to eliminate the human vermin, they wouldn’t do much differently from this lot.
Because you don’t regard the place as your own community.
I’ve been to several refineries that began in the early 1900’s and even one that opened in 1889. They require upgrades and modernization almost continually to remain viable. Part of the laboratory building at the Martinez (of Martini fame) refinery consisted of converted stables.
This incessant drive toward suicide is evil, pathological idiocy.
Yeah, these fools are rushing headlong for the cliff. They don’t have a clue, and that’s the problem.
Net Zero is an impossible dream. Yet leadership still thinks it is a viable option. Leadership doesn’t have a clue, and the people suffer as a result.
“Leadership doesn’t have a clue, and the people suffer as a result.”
This is what they euphemistically call necessary pain. The core message for years has been: people will have to consume less, eat less meat/dairy etc, move around less – in 15 minute gulags, yada, yada, yada.
If you and I know, they know. Why cut them so much slack?
Good one. If the government constantly signals its ultimate goal is to do away with your product, why would anyone spend the money on upgrades and modernization?
CORRECTION:
” They are required, by the government, to make useless upgrades and modernization almost continually to appease the government bureaucracy.
This incessant drive toward government forced suicide is evil, pathological, idiocy and will never result in NET ZERO is a physically and economically impossibility.
Are these bureaucrats unaware that London’s latitude is 51°30′ N, which is 51.51 degrees North of the equator. This means London lies north of the Equator. Since London’s latitude is higher than the latitude of Paris France, it means that London is closer to the North Pole than Paris. London is located in the Southeastern part of England. There is insufficient sunlight to provide the total carbon free energy used in GB to provide the electricity needed for Homes, autos, busses, trains, pumping, manufacturing, pumping water, pumping sewage, making building materials, charging b atteries, etc., etc. Wind Turbines will not help.
The only thing the Net Zero project achieves is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
43% of the voters in the constituency of Alloa and Grangemouth voted Labour in the General Election in 2024. 43% of the voters in the neighbouring Falkirk constiruency, where a lot of Grangemouth workers no doubt live, also voted Labour. There’s a lot of buyers’ remorse in Scotland. Labour have slumped from 35% in the General Election to only 18% in the latest opinion poll, just one point above Reform.
“But what we’re going to do is just completely and utterly give all that up on the back of some campaign, this altar of net zero that they all seem to worship in government … “
It isn’t even “net zero.” It’s not reducing CO2 emissions; it’s just importing them — by the boatload.
Now wait for petrol prices to rise in Scotland due to increased transport costs. You won’t have to wait long…
Why does Scotland behave like a bunch of lemmings? People seem to agree with a government that wants us to commit suicide by accepting the totally unjustifiable increase in living costs particularly the cost of fuel. The government must tell us how Net Zero policies, particularly de carbonisation whatever that means helps the climate. They will not because they can’t. It is a huge sham from a lefty woke mainstream that wants Britain to sink without trace.
There is something the Scots can look forward to. The government is considering introducing zonal pricing for electricity based on local production levels and supply costs.
There are lot of windfarms in Scotland but most demand comes from England and particularly the South East. Under zonal pricing electricity costs in Scotland will be considerably cheaper than for much of England.
But only when the wind blows.
story tip DOGE- needed
Fresh off the back of a trip to Cape Town, UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte has todayannounced a whopping £330,000 ‘support’ package to reform South Africa’s Wholesale Electricity Market and help the country “achieve emissions reductions and provide the energy needed”. Taxpayer cash is going to the Energy Council of South Africa to pay for “consultants to analyse and inform the next stages” to “clarify risks“, and “identify legal gaps” in its energy transition.
https://order-order.com/2025/03/07/government-forks-out-330000-to-reform-south-africas-wholesale-electricity-market/
It’s practice for how to implement rotating blackouts. Already feature in RSA, so good to learn how to do it properly for net zero.
It reads like a movie script. How about a rewrite of “Escape from New York.” Scotland will become a maximum security prison mostly by, of, and for the Scots. Blindly voting for the Labor Party has brought totalitarian government to the land. There will be no escape for most except for the wealthy.
The average citizen will suffer with no heat in winter, no way to leave without an electric auto, but only to the totalitarian state of England. Maybe they can all make sailing ships again and use wind at it’s best (not emissions) but will have to harvest a lot of trees.
Once you shutter the refinery, you will not be able to bring it back. Will have to build a new plant.
Good luck with that.
I love Scottish Celtic music!
Scotland will become a maximum security prison
That will, by virtue of just rebuilding the Hadrianic wall and Vallium, create a few jobs. Although I would call Scotland a hospital for mental health…
It’s pretty clear that both this Labour government and the previous 14 years of Conservative government are intent, bit by bit, to destroy the UK’s industrial base and move us to some dreamworld agrarian state. It’s not as most folk believe that they don’t understand what they are doing, they are doing it deliberately. When they closed the coal power stations they demolished them. Things are becoming desperate. Similar madness happened in Germany with their power industry.
Because it’s clearly deliberate, they can stop this rot if they choose.
Agrarian state? The are also trashing farms and farmland.
Operated by Big Farmer.
I have worked in the oil,gas and petrochemical industry for 46 years as a petroleum chemist. I know all of the current and past refineries since 1978. When I started working there were 16 refineries in the UK. Soon there will be 5, and the UK will become more dependent on imports. The refining and petrochemicals assets have been systematically hollowed by successive governments. Inept ministers oversee inept ministries. Thousands of well paid jobs have been destroyed by taxation and legislation that makes the UK unattractive to invest in. Our government should look at the protection the Belgians and Dutch have lavished on their industry. They get it.
The current misfits running the show in Westminster( and Holyrood) are the worst ever shower of shite that I have ever seen. Of the 5 remaining refineries only two are owned by headline fuel retailers/ oil co’s(Esso and Jet. Two are owned by overseas oil companies( Valero and P66(Phllips)) and one is owned by Prax Group, an independent private company based in the UK, who cannot file their accounts on time?
Sadly the boat has already sailed and not only are we loosing assets but also skills that will be difficult if not impossible to replace.
I am still working at the age of 68 because there is no-one who can do what i do. It takes years to develop these skills. You cannot learn these skills from a video or a book. You have to get your hands dirty and hopefully have a mentor for your development by old duffers like myself.
Over the next few years the UK and EU is going to see de-industrialization on a grand scale that will put us at the mercy of China and the US. Every sector of the manufacturing industry will be affected. Car producers are in for a miserable ride.
In my experience, those who talk about sacrifices having to be made for progress, are rarely, if ever, the ones being sacrificed.
In 1851 James Paraffin Young opened the world’s first oil works near Bathgate, West Lothian.
Young refined oil from boghead coal, or oil shale, in West Lothian. This marked the beginning of the world’s first large-scale petrochemicals industry.
I remember the shale bings in West Lothian when i was working in Bathgate in the 1970s some of which were used in motorway construction.
The Five Sisters near West Calder are a Protected Monument.
A long history killed by a green fundamentalist zealot.
What a mess, I don’t even know what to say about it.
Bye. That’s in reference to the economy, jobs, families, and future.
You messed up – you trusted us.
Language warning
Next stop California.
The UK seems to heading for isolation in Europe in terms of its green fanaticism. Appointing Milliband was definitely a mistake, he looks like a genuine hardcore believer
The rest of Europe seems to be moving on quietly)
Ed Miliband has hit the Jackpot. Where Will Happer might regale his audience with equations, higher level maths and painstaking research and analysis Miliband has ‘clean energy’, whatever that might be. Try a definition of clean and we are thrust into the world of lab coats and autoclaves, but in the great wide world Ed has found a romance that has no formula needs no proof? Where as peer reviewed papers research and maths genius’s meet with a blank in this field romantic language and improbable assertions carry all before them seemingly. Have we confronted with an factor that we cannot challenge?
I keep banging this drum but until the issue of carbon neutral is addressed at first principle level the bandwagon will keep rolling and peoples lives will be negatively impacted.
The message MUST BE no definitive cause and effect observational evidence for the claim of dangerous man made climate change exists as such global policy is being created on a fantasy. It really is that simple waffle about temp records and melting ice etc is a diversion they indicate “warming” not causation.
The heinous pirate ship “climate change” needs hitting below the water line otherwise when Trump gets impeached (only a matter of time the way the mad man is going) the status quo will be reinstated in the USA and the rest of the world will follow.