Four days' fuel left as refinery strike looms

FILLING stations across Scotland have only four days worth of fuel left, experts warned last night as a strike at the country's only oil refinery looms closer.

Supplies to airports, petrol stations and businesses across Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland could be disrupted within a week as contingency plans to close operations at Grangemouth begin today.

The Westminster government has contingency plans to bring fuel from England in the event that next weekend's twoday strike goes on. But industry insiders say it would be impossible to keep all filling stations supplied at normal levels.

MSPs and industry leaders yesterday appealed to the public not to "up the ante" by panic-buying petrol and called on both sides to meet again as a matter of urgency.

Eleventh-hour talks yesterday between Ineos, which owns the refinery, and the union Unite failed to resolve the dispute over plans to close the company's final-salary pension scheme.

Unite said its 1,200 members will stage a 48-hour walkout from 27 April in protest.

Unite national officer Phil McNulty said: "Ineos has refused to withdraw the proposal to reduce the value of our members' pensions, so industrial action is now inevitable."

Tom Crotty, chief executive of Ineos, the Grangemouth refinery, said: "We need to spend 750 million modernising Grangemouth and a strike will make it virtually impossible for us to persuade the Ineos board to go ahead with the funding. If we can resolve this issue, we can build a world-class facility at Grangemouth."

If the funding is not forthcoming, Ineos said at least 650 direct jobs will go with hundreds more indirectly threatened.

Nick Vandervell, communications adviser for the UK Petroleum Industry Association, representing the country's nine major oil companies selling fuel, said filling stations had between four to seven days' fuel left, depending on location.

"Filling stations in the main conurbations are generally resupplied two to three days a week. Elsewhere and in rural areas this is usually around once a week.

"Grangemouth is a significant oil refinery for the whole of Scotland but ourselves and the DTI have contingency plans which cover oil refinery disruption. The danger is that people will dash out and stockpile because of the threat of action."

Lewis Macdonald, MSP, and Labour energy spokesman, said: "It is imperative that Ineos and Unite get together to get this sorted out. It is in nobody's interest to see this drag on. I would appeal to the public not to up the ante by panic buying."