Grangemouth Oil Refinery

Save Grangemouth

The ALBA Party are deeply concerned about the announcement by Petroineos in November 2023 to begin a transition project which could end oil refining at its Grangemouth complex as early as 2025. This is followed by a recent meeting involving refinery owners Petroineos, Unite, and both Scottish and UK Government ministers where all present agreed to the refinery winding down operations.

The closing of the refinery threatens the jobs of 500 employees and 2,000 contractors at the plant and could have a potentially devasting impact on the local population, businesses and communities, as well as the economic and social fabric of central Scotland.

ALBA understand the effect this would have on other key industrial sectors such as plastics and chemicals, is mindful that Grangemouth provides around 70% of the nation's fuel at petrol stations and that it is also the primary supplier of aviation fuel for Scotland’s airports.

We call on the Scottish Government to step in to save Grangemouth, as it did twice under the leadership of Alex Salmond. The Scottish and UK Governments must work with the owners to secure the necessary £60-80 million investment which is required to restart the hydrocracker at Grangemouth which would increase profitability three-fold and provide the life-line necessary for Grangemouth to transition to a secure and sustainable future.

The loss of Scotland’s oil refinery would mean that Scotland would become the only nation out of the World’s top 25 oil producing nations not to have its own oil refining capacity, showing there is a clear need to have Scotland’s oil refinery to be aligned with Scotland’s oil production. There must be steps taken to ensure that oil from forties pipeline, accounting for 40% of all oil production in the North Sea last year, which is piped to Grangemouth is actually refined there, as well as refining the oil from any new licenced fields such as Rosebank.

The ALBA Party believes that Grangemouth has been a pillar in the industrial landscape of Scotland for decades and fully supports the workforce and Unite’s campaign to secure the future of Grangemouth for decades to come. .