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This decision is not only devastating news for Grangemouth and the surrounding area, an area of Scotland I know very well, it is also not good news for the UK economy :-(
The petrochemical plant at the giant Grangemouth complex near Falkirk in Scotland is to close.
About 800 people are directly employed by the petrochemical plant, with more employed as sub-contractors plus it will have serious effects on many local businesses in the surrounding areas.
Ineos made the announcement following a meeting with its workforce at the plant and its associated oil refinery.
The facility has been shut for a week due to an ongoing dispute between Ineos and the Unite union.
Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe said at the weekend if the it was likely the refinery would go too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24631342
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Hardly surprising ...
All over Europe downstream refinery plant has been closing down. The key reasons are not labour costs but energy ( no.1 factor ) and much tougher environmental regulation. The trend is very much to import refined products.
The offer to Unite was for a brutal cut in conditions of employment which would have echoed right across the UK. Unite have declined to bite the baited hook. They are betting that even without refining storage/distribution will have to be kept operating and that the refinery itself may be brought back into operation at some stage. Meanwhile the workforce will get substantial redundancy payments etc etc.
So what now ? Pretty obviously EU states in general with rapidly declining capacity to refine crude oil are leaving themselves open to all kinds of problems if there is any disruption of refined product shipping. Moreover some states notably the UK have cut refined storage capacity (inc. petrol stations) by a half in the last 20 years ...
The retail market will become a lot more volatile as traders take advantage of market opportunities. Big users e.g. airlines, shipping, rail will have to up their hedging team quite a bit in some cases.
For Scotland and the SNP it is an unmitigated disaster and not at all good news for Geo Osbourne either.
That is what happens when you pursue utterly contradictory energy/green policies and on top cede control of vital national assets to foreigners.
In practical terms refined oil products are likely to trend above prices south of the border doing Scotland's economy no good at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTkGNcntD7s
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There will be a lot of families in the Grangemouth and surrounding towns who will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning at the news the petrochemical plant and refinery at Grangemouth are to re-open immediately.
Hopefully, albeit there may be some redundancies, the 3 year no strike deal will allow the plant to continue to be a major contributor to the petrochemical industry and the economy as a whole.
As much as I believe there is a role for trade unions, I do not support actions which hold organisations to ransom, actions which in turn risk the jobs of those the unions are supposed to protect.
Hopefully the more militant unions will take heed of what happened at Grangemouth and learn lessons from what, if the plant had closed, would have been an disaster not only for all the parties involved in the dispute, but for many others in the surrounding areas.
The Grangemouth petrochemical plant near Falkirk is to stay open after a new deal was struck with workers.
Staff were told in a mass meeting at 11:00 that the decision to close the site would be reversed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24671184
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So now basically all uk jobs outside of the public sector can be put on zero hours contracts etc etc.
The labour movement fought against casualisation of labour from the C19 ( the match girls, dockers ) through to the 1960s. Now all that is being reversed. Unite were not holding anybody to ransom. A sad lesson in what happens when you offshore control of most of the economy - much of it doesn't even pay UK tax.
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