SNP and Labour ministers have ‘failed miserably’ to deliver a new future for Grangemouth, union leaders said yesterday amid rising anger over jobs losses.
The Scottish and UK Governments were accused of doing ‘too little, too late’ about 400 posts disappearing with the closure of Scotland’s last oil refinery.
Owners Petroineos said last November they planned to shutter the site in 2025, blaming global competition and falling demand for fossil fuels amid the shift to green energy.
The firm, a joint venture between PetroChina and billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos, also cited UK and Scottish ministers backing a ban on new petrol and diesel cars by 2035.
The closure was officially confirmed on Thursday, after Edinburgh and London failed to persuade the industrial giant to extend the life of the loss-making 100-year-old plant.
Union bosses are furious the UK and Scottish Governments have not done more to protect jobs at the Scottish oil refinery
Labour and SNP ministers hastily added £20 million to an existing £80 million growth fund for the wider Falkirk area and talked up Project Willow as a possible saviour.
Announced in July, the £1.5million study is looking at long-term options for the refinery site.
The candidates are hydrogen production, chemically produced clean eFuels, and sustainable aviation fuel made from food, farm and forest waste.
Meeting unions and local politicians near Grangemouth yesterday, John Swinney insisted the work was being ‘taking forward at pace’ and denied a lack of action by government.
But after meeting the First Minister, union leaders said Project Willow could take five to 10 years to create jobs, forcing skilled workers to take jobs in the Middle East.
SNP energy minister Gillian Martin also admitted earlier this week that Project Willow was ‘only just starting’ and she was ‘not entirely sure’ when it would finish.
Sources close to Petroineos previously told the BBC that Project Willow was too late to save the refinery jobs, a fifth of the 2000 posts across the vast petrochemical complex.
Unite Scottish Secretary Derek Thomson said refinery workers were ‘angry’ and ‘in shock’.
Up to 400 jobs are at risk as Scotlands last oil refinery closes next year
He said: ‘Project Willow is about the work of tomorrow - we need work today.
‘There’s a real disappointment around the way both governments have handled this.
‘They both came out pre- and post-general election to say they would be doing all they can to save Grangemouth [but] the first test of the just transition failed miserably yesterday.’
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer, who also attended the off-site meeting with Mr Swinney at Forth Valley College, urged both governments to step in.
She said: ‘I don’t expect anything less from Petroineos. They’re a private, profit-making company, of course they will put commercial interests first.
‘But the Scottish Government and UK Government have set out telling us they think the closure of this site is premature, that there are other options available in the future that we can transition to, but they have failed to make sure that transition happens.
‘As far as I’m concerned, this is a failure on both our UK and Scottish governments, because they haven’t got their ducks lined up.
Ahead of the meeting, Grangemouth plant operator and Unite rep Chris Hamilton also told BBC Radio Scotland that Project Willow was ‘potentially too little, too late’.
He said: ‘We are now facing a period of months where the workers of Grangemouth could be thrown on the scrap heap unless we can get some better deal.
‘We’ve known about this for eight, nine months. The Government’s made commitments for months. Any commitment now as to what they’ll do going forward might be too little, too late.’
The remarks echo warnings given by the Scottish Government’s own advisers on how to switch from fossil fuels to a low-carbon economy without mass unemployment.
The Just Transition Commission said in July that Grangemouth faced a ‘disorderly and unjust transition’ away from fossil fuels if current poor planning continued.
It said maintaining employment at the 1,700-acre site near Falkirk was an ‘early litmus test’ of whether Net Zero climate targets could be delivered in a far way.
Responding to the Union criticism, Mr Swinney said Petroineos’s closure decision was ‘premature’ and denied government was too slow to act.
He said: ‘Work was commenced when the possibility of this - and it is a possibility, not a definite - of this being raised as a potential closure in the second quarter of 2025.
‘Work was put in place to develop new technologies and new opportunities. Now obviously, the more time we’ve got available to do that, the more advanced those propositions can be.
‘But the assurance I gave the workforce today is that the Scottish Government will work with its partners to make sure that all energy is put into those measures to ensure that we create new opportunities for people in this community.’
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said the UK government had done everything it could, but Petronineos refused to discussion maintaining the life of the refinery.
The site had lost money for 10 years and ‘there was no government support that would have kept it open’, he said.
He admitted the government had to prove to workers ‘jobs of the future’ were available, but a just transition would take time.
Ms Martin, the SNP’s acting secretary for net zero and energy, told the BBC yesterday that ‘fairly minimal’ modifications to the refinery could give it a fresh lease of life.
She said: ‘There is a great opportunity there, and we need to hang onto that workforce for as long as possible, so that they have got the opportunity to be involved in a transition.
‘We need their skills and we need their expertise.’
But on Wednesday she described a far more complex picture, with feasibility studies, business cases, and regulatory changes all needed as part of Project Willow.
‘It’s not going to be a couple of weeks turn around by any means,’ she said.
Scottish Tory energy spokesman Douglas Lumsden said: ‘Workers and the local community are looking to governments for leadership, but Gillian Martin appeared blissfully naïve about the seriousness of what is occurring at Grangemouth.’