By IRNA,
London : Priority will be given to reopening the key Forties pipeline system after striking workers return to work at Scotland’s only oil refinery, owners of the Grangemouth plant said Monday.
Ineos said it hoped to restore power and steam supplies much more quickly to BP’s 700,000 barrels per day pipeline, which handles near half the UK’s North Sea oil from 70 fields.
Some 1,200 workers at Grangemouth are due to return from their two-day strike over pensions on Tuesday, but it is thought that it will take up to three weeks to get the refinery, which supplies 10 per cent of the UK’s capacity, fully back in operation.
“Forties will be the first priority,” Ineos said, but it was unable to state how long it would take to get the power and steam back so the adjacent pipeline could resume.
The two-day strike, which is the first to close a British refinery in more than 70 years, has already caused sporadic fuel shortages throughout Scotland and northern England.
The government, which is losing more than Pnds 1 million (Dlrs 2 m) an hour in North Sea revenues from the pipeline closure, is urging Ineos and workers in the United Union to return to negotiations, with the risk of further industrial action pending.
The strike action has prompted Scotland to import a total of 65,000 metric tons of fuel, equal to about 10 days normal supply, by tanker early this week to replace lost production.
Despite petrol shortages, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has so far refused to invoke statutory powers to ration fuel to motorists and restrict supplies to essential users as happened when protests over prices blockaded refineries in 2000.