Grangemouth closure will see Scotland lose out on hundreds of highly skilled apprentice jobs

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Scotland will lose hundreds of highly skilled engineering apprenticeships if the Grangemouth oil refinery closes. Industry experts have warned plans to wind down the site and turn it into an import depot will have a devastating impact on the country’s skills base and ability to create future jobs in new green energy technology.

Robert Buirds, a former Unite union official who previously chaired the Grangemouth Contractors Forum, said: “There are dozens of companies who rely on Grangemouth directly or in the supply chain to be able to offer hundreds of apprenticeships to young people in vital engineering fields.“The site is effectively a national training base which recruits every year, so closure would be a major blow to Scotland’s engineering skills, but this doesn’t seem to be a ­consideration for the government.“We are talking about welders, platers, mechanics, electricians, all of the skills that will be central to Scotland’s ability to create quality jobs for the future, not just in traditional energy sectors like oil and gas, but also in renewables like wind and solar.“People are not grasping just how devastating the closure of the oil refinery will be for our skill base and the fact that once these things are gone it is incredibly difficult to get them back.“The training in high-skilled jobs that are available offshore, for example, are not taught offshore.

The training is onshore, at places like Grangemouth, so closing the refinery will impact on the ability of Scottish workers to get well paid offshore jobs.”Grangemouth is owned jointly by multi-billionaire tax exile Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and a firm controlled by China’s government.Petroineos announced its intention last year to axe production capacity,