Flynn calls for steel-style options for Grangemouth – Daily Business

SNP Westminster Leader, Stephen Flynn, has called on the UK government to consider nationalising Grangemouth as state ownership emerges as an option for British Steel.

Talks are set to resume between British Steel bosses and government officials today, with unions saying the future of the Scunthorpe plant is on a “cliff-edge”.

British Steel’s Chinese owner Jingye say the furnaces are “no longer financially sustainable” and they are unwilling to purchase new raw materials.

That has led UK ministers to consider nationalisation to protect what is seen as a vital national asset. Reform UK is calling for British Steel to be nationalised until a buyer can be found.

Mr Flynn says that like British Steel, Grangemouth is of “clear strategic national importance” and options must be “reconsidered”.

Last month the Project Willow report into options for the Grangemouth site, the UK’s only oil refinery, found the site must switch to green energy.

However, Mr Flynn wants these options to be reconsidered. “Grangemouth is our sole refinery and central to our energy security.

“If British Steel is considered viable for nationalisation as an industry of strategic national importance then our ability to sustain our energy demand surely is too.”

Mr Flynn sits on the Scottish Affairs Committee which was told last week that both the Scottish and UK governments had decided against investing taxpayers’ money into the refinery.

Officials from the Grangemouth site, along with one of the researchers on the Project Willow report, said it was losing $1.5 million a day and government policy opposing oil and gas production meant it was losing its market.

Consultant Anu Bhambi said nine projects were now under consideration that presented an “exciting” future for the site.

Iain Hardie, head of legal and external affairs at Petroineos, the joint venture which owns the refinery, told MPs that the UK and Scottish governmens were given access to data to make an investment and neither government chose to do that.

“I can only presume they drew the same conclusions we have drawn that to continue with refining operations was not an economic proposition and therefore they were not prepared to put taxpayers’ money into it,” he said.