No prospect of saving Grangemouth as plant loses £385,000 every day, say bosses

There are no credible bids for the Grangemouth oil refinery, with no prospect of saving it from closure next year, MSPs have been told.

In the first time Petroineos bosses have spoken publicly giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Economy Committee, they said the plant is losing £385,000 a day.

There has been no sign of government intervention to keep it open after next spring.

In September, PetroIneos announced that Grangemouth, one of the oldest oil refinerys in the world, will close in spring 2025, costing almost three thousand jobs directly and in the supply chain.

On Wednesday, it became clear there is not much hope of changing that.

“What would need to happen for there to be a pause, which i think is what most people are looking for?” asked deputy committee covenor Michelle Thomson.

Iain Hardie, head of legal and external affairs at Petroineos, replied: “We owe it our shareholders, we owe our employees, and we owe to our customers to ensure that we have a robust plan of action to ensure that we can smoothly transition from a refinery to a terminal, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Grangemouth will go from refining oil for petrol and diesel pumps across Scotland to importing it from the Netherlands and storing it – essentially becoming Scotland’s petrol station.

Petroineos said there is no buyer, no prospect of government intervention, and work to turn the refinery in to a biofuels plant is years off.

MSPs will hear from Unite, the union representing most of the workers at Grangemouth, next week.

Unite want the Scottish and UK Governments to step in.

Scottish secretary Ian Murray and deputy first minister Kate Forbes are signing the £100m Falkirk and Grangemouth Growth deal on Thursday.

Unite wants the two governments to put in a £100m a year to keep Grangemouth going a bit longer.

The union said that would be much better than the estimated £400m economic loss to Scotland of it closing.

Petroineos thinks it is already past that stage, and that by June next year Grangemouth oil refinery will close.