Scotland’s only refinery officially ends operations
Petroineos Refining Ltd. (PRL) has permanently ended conventional processing activities at Petroineos Manufacturing Scotland Ltd.’s 150,000-b/d Grangemouth refinery complex on the Firth of Forth in Scotland (OGJ Online, Sept. 13, 2024).
As of Apr. 28, Grangemouth refinery was no longer processing crude oil, PRL confirmed to OGJ in an e-mailed statement.
“[PRL] has invested £50 million (US$66.4 million) in creating a modern import and distribution terminal capable of receiving finished fuels by sea for onward distribution to customers around the country,” said Iain Hardie, Petroineos’ regional head of legal and external affairs.
“From 29 April, we will be importing all the products necessary to meet Scotland’s demand for transport fuels,” Hardie added.
Confirmation of the closure follows PRL’s late-2020 announcement of its intention to begin rationalizing capacity before ultimately ending operations in second-quarter 2025 amid a collision of global market pressures and the global energy transition, the combination of which left the 1924-built refinery unable to economically compete with more modern and efficient sites in the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Africa, as well as limited demand for key fossil-based fuels produced at the site (OGJ Online, Nov. 19, 2020).
PRL extended its appreciation to Grangemouth’s workforce, about 400 of which were set to lose employment with the refinery’s shutdown.
“Our colleagues have shown incredible commitment, dignity, and resilience during months of uncertainty regarding the future of this [refinery], through the consultation period, phased shutdown, and the start of refinery decommissioning. It has been a challenging period, but their professionalism has ensured security of fuel supply to our customers across Scotland and beyond," Hardie said.
PRL is a joint venture of INEOS AG’s Ineos Investments (Jersey) Ltd. (50.1%) and China National Petroleum Corp.’s PetroChina Co. Ltd. (PetroChina) subsidiary PetroChina International (London) Co. Ltd. (49.9%).
Grangemouth’s future
The refinery’s shuttering comes just more than a month after the UK and Scottish governments released results of a £1.5-million ($2-million) feasibility study executed by Ernst & Young Global Ltd. that outlines nine low-carbon and renewable energy business models most likely to attract private investment for securing the industrial site’s future (OGJ Online, Mar. 21, 2025).
Known as Project Willow, the plan—backed by £25 million from the Scottish government and £200 million from the UK government—includes investments such as:
- Waste: Hydrothermal upgrading (breaking down hard-to-recycle plastics); chemical plastics recycling, acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) biorefining (breaking down waste material).
- Biofeedstock: Breaking down Scottish timber into bioethanol; anaerobic digestion of bioresources and digestate pyrolysis; hydrotreated esters and fatty acids (HEFA), entailing conversion of Scottish cover crops into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel using low-carbon hydrogen.
- Offshore wind conduit: Replacing natural gas with hydrogen; using low-carbon hydrogen to produce methanol for subsequent conversion to SAF; producing low-carbon ammonia from hydrogen for shipping and chemicals.
Both the UK and Scottish governments said they work with Petroineos to market the proposals set out in Project Willow and seek investor interest to support businesses and stakeholders in a goal to bring forward investible propositions for the site within the next 12 months.
Unforgiving workforce?
In the wake of the refinery’s closure, Unite the Union (Unite)—the country’s largest trade union—issued an Apr. 29 statement in which it warned political leaders of electoral consequences for failing the refinery’s workforce and the broader Grangemouth community.
“The UK and Scottish governments have utterly failed to protect refinery jobs at Grangemouth, and thousands face losing their jobs as oil refining in Scotland ends,” said Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary.
“There are projects like SAF production which can be accelerated to protect jobs, and…pave the way for Grangemouth to become a world leader in green aviation,” Graham said.
Unite cited an impact assessment by PwC that concluded the Grangemouth refinery makes an economic contribution of £403.6 million/year and that “almost 3,000 workers [relied] on the refinery’s operations.”
“[B]oth [the UK and Scottish] governments have effectively allowed China to shutdown Scotland’s capacity to refine fuel, as it hopes to use Grangemouth as an import hub,” Graham contended.
“Workers will not forget or forgive,” she said.
Graham pointed out that while Project Willow has identified nine possible projects for the site, “under [PRL’s] proposals, most of these [projects] would not start for several years after the site had closed and jobs had been lost.”
Unite believes many of the potential projects “could be fast tracked and implemented now,” including “a rapid move to convert the existing refinery to [SAF] production…starting with co-processing [of renewable feedstock with conventional crude].”
“Instead, not one job will be saved at the refinery, not one job will be created for years by Project Willow, and not one penny of the £200-million National Wealth Fund can be unlocked without private investment,” said Derek Thomson, leader of Unite Scotland.
Robert Brelsford | Downstream Editor
Robert Brelsford joined Oil & Gas Journal in October 2013 as downstream technology editor after 8 years as a crude oil price and news reporter on spot crude transactions at the US Gulf Coast, West Coast, Canadian, and Latin American markets. He holds a BA (2000) in English from Rice University and an MS (2003) in education and social policy from Northwestern University.
