A North American oil and gas company is behind an enormous takeover bid being considered by ministers to save the Grangemouth oil refinery, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Owners Petroineos confirmed on Thursday that it was closing the facility which produces vast quantities of petrol, diesel, heating oil and aviation fuel for the UK, in the second financial quarter of 2025, with the loss of 400 jobs.
The company, a joint venture between PetroChina and billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos, blamed global competition and falling demand for fossil fuels.
In response Labour and SNP ministers hastily added £20million to an existing £80million growth fund for the wider Falkirk area and talked up Project Willow, a joint government investment scheme, as a possible saviour.
And SNP MSP for Falkirk Michelle Thomson claimed there is a serious prospective buyer which could step in to keep Scotland’s only refinery going.
The refinery at Grangemouth is due to close next summer
Now, the MoS can reveal a North American company is the interested buyer.
A source said: ‘The company has had agents scoping out the site, it is a North American oil and gas company, but the name cannot be revealed at the moment.’
It is set to be an astronomically expensive bid, however, insiders will not share how much the takeover might be worth for fear it could affect the markets.
SNP minister Ivan McKee has confirmed talks with the buyer are going ahead.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? programme McKee said: ‘We’re working closely with the UK government to explore options of what can be done to support the jobs there and keep the plant going.
‘I know that there’s been talk of potential buyers coming in to run the operation and all of those avenues will be explored fully.
He added: ‘There is a possible buyer, clearly there’s a process to be gone through.’
However, Petroineos last night claimed it had not seen a ‘credible’ offer put forward.
Petrineos, a joint venture between billionaire Brexit-backing co-owner of Manchester United Sir Jim Ratcliffe - via his Ineos Group - and China’s state-backed PetroChina, announced last November that it planned to close the refinery, first opened by BP in 1924, in the second financial quarter of 2025 amid enormous financial difficulty.
It is understood the site is losing around £383,000 a day and is on course to lose around £153m this year.
But unions hoped it could remain open beyond the initial closing date to allow a smoother transition towards its future use.
Once the refinery is closed, the plan is to make the site a storage facility for ‘finished fuels’.
It is currently the primary supplier of aviation fuel for Scotland’s major airports and supplies almost two thirds of the country’s demand for refined oil products - and represents around 14 per cent of the UK’s overall refining capacity.
At the end of last week, the MoS was made aware of a top secret meeting taking place among shareholders to discuss the future of the refinery and agree a final closure date.
Hours after that discussion, sources fed back that the facility would indeed stick to its previous quarter two 2025 deadline for closure.
At the same time, UK Government insiders pointed to ‘movement’ taking place within Project Willow, the shared study by the UK Government and the Scottish Government which is tasked with looking at options for Grangemouth’s future.
On Monday, the Mail on Sunday asked Sir Keir Starmer if he stood ready to nationalise the site if needed to keep it going, to which he responded: ‘I’m not going to get ahead of ourselves here.’
Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe co-owns Petroineos which plans to shut the refinery
And, on Thursday, the outcome of that shareholder meeting was officially announced.
In joint statements, the UK and Scottish Governments said they were committed to work together with Petrineos to decomission the oil refinery and secure an industrial future for the site.
But workers said the closure announcement was a ‘kick in the teeth’.
Some insiders are keen for the North American oil and gas company to step in to stop the two governments and the company from following a ‘green agenda’ and only allowing a storage hub for renewable energy at Grangemouth.
A spokesman for Petroineos said: ‘We have seen no evidence of a credible bid for the refinery. If a genuine offer is forthcoming, we will engage seriously with it.
Since Petroineos was formed in 2011, our shareholders have invested nearly £1bn in the refinery, absorbing losses of more than £590m in the same period. This year alone, we are anticipating losses of more than £150m.’