Grangemouth – the fight for jobs and climate justice

INEOS’s plans to close Scotland’s only petrol refinery at Grangemouth represent a critical test for both unions and climate campaigners. Pete Cannell argues that a radically different approach that ditches partnership with the oil and gas industry is required.

An earlier version of this article was published on the Scot.E3 blog

Scotland’s only petrol refinery, based on the Firth of Forth at Grangemouth, is scheduled to close in 2025. The closure is not a cause for celebration by climate campaigners, it will be replaced by a new refinery in Antwerp and 500 workers at the Grangemouth site will lose their jobs.  The closure is in no sense part of a transition away from Fossil Fuels and even less is it part of a just transition.

The huge 1700 acre Grangemouth site is owned by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS.  They bought the Grangemouth petrochemical plant and the refinery from BP in 2005.  Then in 2014 the company raided the pension fund originally established by BP and in turn de-recognised the plant unions. The refinery part of the site is now run by Petroineos, a joint venture between INEOS and the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company PetroChina. 

Unite, the main union at the refinery is leading a campaign to ‘Keep Grangemouth Working’.  The union is calling for action to ‘Extend, Invest and Transition’.  On 3 August, they organised a march and rally starting from the Grangemouth stadium on the edge of the INEOS site. Around 600, including refinery workers and their families, and trade unionists from around Scotland and further afield marched to a rally held in a local park.  There were a handful of climate activists.  

At the rally Unite Scottish Regional Secretary Derek Thomson talked about how the union was campaigning locally to raise awareness of the impact that closure would have on jobs and the local economy.  Unite believes that the new Labour Government may be able to persuade Ratcliffe to extend the life of the refinery.  The Tories pledged to provide 700 million Euros in credit to support the development of the new Petroineos refinery in Antwerp and they think that if Labour were to question this it would provide leverage.

Grangemouth is a critical campaign for the climate movement.  There are moments when decisions are made and actions taken, or not made and not taken, that then resonate through the movement and shape its future trajectory.  If the Grangemouth refinery is closed it will be such a moment.  In Scotland another such time was the failure to take the BiFab fabrication yards into public ownership in the autumn of 2017.  The loss of 1400 jobs at BiFab offshore renewables technology yards discredited the idea that action over climate offers opportunities for employment.  The closure of Grangemouth would be not just a blow to the workers, their families and the local economy, it would also send political shockwaves through the climate and workers movements. 

At the rally on 3 August the speaker from Friends of the Earth Scotland received a great response from the Unite members in the crowd.  It is important that the union and the Grangemouth workers see transition to a sustainable future as a positive goal.  However, there is a real weakness in the current campaign.  Unite’s strategy seems to be based on pressurising INEOS into extending the lifetime of the refinery.  But there’s no evidence that Ratcliffe is interested in doing this or interested in planning for a sustainable transition.  And it’s not that Grangemouth is unprofitable – simply that Antwerp would be more profitable.  None of the speakers at the rally criticised INEOS.  Implicitly or explicitly the focus was on partnership with the company.  

At a time when all the indicators suggest that global heating is increasing faster than the most pessimistic predictions, companies like INEOS and BP are doubling down on investment in fossil fuels.  They aim to make mega-profits while they can.  In these circumstances, when action to decarbonise is overdue, working in partnership with big oil, while talking about the need for transition and social justice is simply greenwashing.  It won’t save jobs, and it sets back progress towards transition.

So, what’s the alternative?  Public ownership, and democratic planning that involves energy workers is essential.  To build the mass campaign that could make this possible the unions and the climate movement need go beyond slogans.  

The private sector is simply not capable of the kind of planning and coordination that is needed to save jobs and manage a just transition. 

Convincing energy workers, winning hearts and minds and building the mass support for public ownership requires brutal clarity about what the oil and gas companies are doing. The profits they’ve made and continue to make, the huge subsidies they continue to attract and the way they expect us to clean up their mess.  Grangemouth has been a site for petrochemicals for a hundred years. Without an enormously expensive cleanup the site is only suitable for industrial use. 

Partnership with INEOS is a dead end.  The company has no loyalty or regard for the workers or the local population.  There’s no guarantee if the refinery closes in 2025 that the rest of the operations on the site will continue much longer, and with it, the loss of over 2,500 jobs.  Ratcliffe expects us to pay the huge cost of cleaning up the site.  And the residents of Grangemouth having lived with the stink and pollution of the plant for decades will remain with a toxic legacy.

But to win hearts and minds and build the campaign there also needs to be a plan for change.  The vast site at Grangemouth could become a hub for a wide range of renewable technologies.  There’s room to establish new facilities, there’s good communications by land and via the Firth of Forth and there is an established workforce and a cluster of further and higher education institutions in the region that could support the development of a new low carbon economy. 

The nature of the plan matters.  At the Grangemouth rally – ex-MP and deputy leader of the Alba Party, Kenny MacAskill argued that Grangemouth could prosper through the development of green hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.  But these are the solutions that are promoted by Offshore Energy UK, the organisation that represents the interests of the UK oil and gas sector.  Both technologies may have some use in the future but the industry focus on them right now is aimed at maintaining oil and gas production, and the infrastructure and systems that support it, for as long as possible.  Opportunities for rapid progress lie in Wind, Solar, Wave and Tidal technologies together with energy storage and a new smart distribution grid.  Ending partnership between unions and big oil also requires a new and critical view of what technologies support jobs and employment and support rapid decarbonisation and a break from the fake self-serving solutions that are advanced by the oil and gas industry.  Which technologies are prioritised is not simply a technical choice but also highly political.