Poor Grangemouth, big blow to the area. Leaving Scotland without a refinery forcing us to rely on English production an obvious defenestration to independence ambitions too. Really tragic to see under a Labour government, combined with port Talbot - just what is Starmer doing???
I went on a school trip to Grangemouth in primary 7 and my main memories of it are the coach journey. This is definitely the end of an era though.
Not sure about the politics of it if the reports of it running at a massive loss are true. Potentially the resources could be more efficiently reallocated to a more modern energy industry or plant.
The company said: “Due to its size and configuration, Grangemouth incurs high levels of capital expenditure each year just to maintain its licence to operate.
“This annual outlay on essential planned maintenance and running repairs has been consistently higher than the company’s earnings over the past decade.”
It said it has invested $1.2bn since 2011 and has lost more than $775m since then.
Not sure what you expect Starmer (or indeed Swinney) to do about losses like that.
That’s child’s play for oil cash over 13 years. It’s also less than half the story with opex not being divulged, and earnings is weasel words which isn’t EBITDA or revenue or actual accounting terms, which can hide a lot of misgivings. Show me the full accounts and I’ll be able to tell you more in other words. This is jim rattling his tax sabre still, and Holyrood can do fuck all really - it doesn’t set any business taxes. This lies wholly with Westminster, who can certainly give in to Jim. Or buy it off him and have GBEnergy have their first assets. Or sink it and ensure Scotland is dependent on it’s neighbour despite having the lions share of production
