A growth in Scottish diesel imports presents a glimpse into the nation’s future power safety forward of the potential closure of its solely oil refinery.
Imports to a key port on the east coast surged to the best in not less than eight years in January, information from analytics agency Vortexa Ltd. present. Normally, a lot of the nation’s diesel is processed from crude at Petroineos’s Grangemouth plant, which could shut as quickly as subsequent 12 months after losses over the previous decade.
The sudden flurry of imports highlights why the potential closure of the refinery outdoors Edinburgh has turn into a political scorching potato. The location accounts for about 13% of the UK’s gasoline manufacturing and contributes to about 4% of Scotland’s financial system, whereas additionally supplying gasoline into northern England and elements of Northern Eire. A shutdown would enhance Scotland’s reliance on imports.
- Advertisement -
“Grangemouth is of strategic significance to the financial system, not simply of Scotland, however of the entire UK,” Neil Grey, who was the Scottish power secretary till early February, wrote in a letter to the UK authorities final month.
A senior Petroineos govt advised a Scottish authorities committee final 12 months that it needs to shut the refinery partly as a result of it incurred losses of greater than $1 billion within the final decade. He additionally mentioned {that a} key diesel-producing unit had been offline for a number of months attributable to operational points, and that its restart was very important for the viability of the refinery’s enterprise.
A lot of the infrastructure on the website, which started working a couple of century in the past, is much older than swaths of recent capability being introduced on-line within the Center East and China. Petroineos plans to show the location right into a fuel-import terminal and retain its chemical substances operations there.
Latest Imports
The exact reason behind January’s import growth is difficult to pin down, however the Grangemouth refinery — and a pipeline that serves it — have seen some curtailments since final 12 months, and a few fuel-making models have been taken out of operation this month.
There was a leak final month at a key crude pipeline that feeds the terminal from the west coast. Within the days after, a neighborhood gasoline station had no gasoline and diesel for nearly every week, citing points at Grangemouth.
A part of the choice to plan for the location’s closure stems from a £40 million ($50.4 million) price to get a license by mid-2025 to maintain it open, Iain Hardie, Petroineos’s head of authorized and exterior affairs, mentioned in a parliamentary committee assembly in December.
That has sparked debate about whether or not the federal government ought to step in to guard tons of of jobs that danger being misplaced if the refinery closes.
At a gathering final month, Vitality Minister Graham Stuart mentioned the federal government would take into account any requests for help, however that it had acquired no such declare from Petroineos. The corporate mentioned it hadn’t made a declare primarily based on suggestions from the federal government.
When Petroineos final 12 months introduced the deliberate closure and conversion of the plant right into a fuel-import website, the UK authorities mentioned it was assured concerning the nation’s provides.
“Grangemouth is important nationwide infrastructure, it’s large information in any context,” Petroineos’s Hardie mentioned in December. “What we’re doing now could be setting up the enabling infrastructure in order that we are able to proceed to play the function of a gasoline provider in Scotland, however not as a producer.”
