From threat of closure to making £100m a year

The arrival of shale gas from the US will mean Grangemouth can look forward to profits of £100 million a year, after suffering losses on this scale in recent times.

Dwindling supplies from the North Sea have meant that the petrochemical plant has only been running at half capacity which has led to the thumping losses.

Grangemouth is essentially two key operations. One is the refinery which processes oil from the North Sea. The other is the petrochemicals plant which uses the chemical residues from the raw oil to make plastics.

John Mcnally, chief executive of Ineos, Olefins & Polymers, UK, said: “If you look back on the history of this site were at times losing over £100m, in fact hundreds of millions of pounds, and it was absolutely unsustainable.

“Looking forward we expect to be making over £100m a year on this site if everything is running.”

About 800 jobs are directly dependent on the petrochemi- 0 John Mcnally said the plant would now make money cals plant and thousands more indirectly. Ineos warned during the industrial dispute of 2013, when it set out proposals to close the petrochemicals plant, that its demise would throw the future of the refinery into doubt.

Mr Mcnally added: “In 2013 or immediate hope for Grangemouth was survival. With the advent of US shale gas, we are delighted that not only will the site be profitable in 2016, but that we are in a position to extend these benefits to chemical manufacturing and industry in general.”