There was an item on bbc news this morning. Apparently because you cannot just turn off a refinery for a 2 day strike, they have already started reducing production ready for the strike. Once the strike has finished it will take another 3-4 weeks to get the refinery back to full production.

I work in industrial controls and I have seen first hand that after a shut down, on startup anything that was on its last legs will usually fail thus prolonging the shutdown even further. It is very rare for any plant coming out of a period of inactivity to start firts time without any issues, let alone one the size of the production facility in Grangemouth!:(

Think I will be filling up midweek, but as said in another thread I've hardly used the car over the last week but going away at the weekend so might be adviseable.

Davy

I don't get why it's the governments fault.......it's the oil companies that are putting up the price of fuel, as far as I know the price of oil hasn't risen all that much and these prises are soley down to greed and the fact that now the price is over £1 that was the signal to put them up.....yes the government is making more money but not by anything they have done .....would love to know what market forces drove the price of fuel up at our local garages by 6p a litre this week..........and diesel is only taxed 2p a litre more than petrol so the fuel companies are again profiteering or selling petrol at a compensated by by diesel price

It's started - panic buying that is:eek:

Peeps have hauled themselves out of bed, seen the front pages of the papers and headed for the nearest filling station.

Our local Shell is lucky to have a couple of people filling up at this time on a Sunday - there were 35 when I was there a few mins ago.

Two of the 3 peeps in front of me put in £10 worth, the 3rd topped up with a £5 :(

Sadly I had to part with £48's worth :(

According to this there should be enough petrol and we should not panic buy. Its panic buying that always causes the problem. Peopl fill up when they dont normally so everywhere ends up with empty pumps before their next delivery is due.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Calm urged over refinery shutdown

According to this there should be enough petrol and we should not panic buy. Its panic buying that always causes the problem. Peopl fill up when they dont normally so everywhere ends up with empty pumps before their next delivery is due.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Calm urged over refinery shutdown

It's 'reassurance' like this that starts the panic buying! People don't believe 'officialdom' these days - I wonder why? - so it's every man (and woman) for themselves. Sad, but true

It's 'reassurance' like this that starts the panic buying! People don't believe 'officialdom' these days - I wonder why? - so it's every man (and woman) for themselves. Sad, but true

No, its just the mention of the words strike and petrol that start people panicking. "Reassurance" has nothing to do with it.

1. its being shut down temporarily as a safety measure while the staff strike. if staff are on strike then the plant cannot be run safely.

2. Its only going to affect scotland as its the only refinery up there.

3. With the help of the media stirring and people who do not read the full story it will create panic buying. as many people remember the panic buying of iirc 2001 then they wont wont to risk the same.

Basically the fat cats are laughing as more fuel is sold and the price rises as people dont care what they are paying to make sure their tank is full.

Im not going to be racing out to get fuel, scaremongery and panic filling is the quickest way to make the fuel shortage happen as everyone will buy at the same time instead of spread out over a week/month.

EE will rub her hands with delight if the fuel runs out and everyone ends up parked on "her" motorways...

Hi,

I saw this on teletext, and it would appear that the greedy fuel suppliers are trying to do the employees out of their works pensions.

Yet another concerted attempt to rob ordinary working people of pensions. No one wants to be without, fuel and in my job it will make life extremely difficult, but they have my sympathy, as soon if this carries on then the only ones that will have pensions are the bloated fat cats, with them being totally OTT, along with their massive share appropriations.

Then the rest of us will have to rely on the p**s poor state pension, or means tested hand outs, or scavenge on the rubbish tips in our latter years. At the same time the fat cats, oligarchs get ever richer, by what they take from us.

Soviet (open thy eyes and you will see)

no one is getting robbed out of anything, they aren't touching the pensions for existing workers only changing the rules for new employees.

I've already filled me bath :(

Just make sure you don't smoke whilst you're in there!!

Another reason to emigrate.

No one elses fuel goes up at the rate ours goes up. It's £1.50 a GALLON where I am going.

England is such a worthless country to live in, what does it actually offer us?

I think in another couple of years I might aswell move out of this ****hole.

Another reason to emigrate.

No one elses fuel goes up at the rate ours goes up. It's £1.50 a GALLON where I am going.

It does in america.

as far as I know the price of oil hasn't risen all that much

If you consider the 20ppl rise over the last year, the government could help us by reducing the fuel duty by 3.5ppl and still collect as much money as they did in 2006-7, but that is a silly idea.

Oh, and to cheer you up more I think that the hauliers are planning a blockage/protest at some point this year. Talking to a trucker earlier today about it!

Steve

Grangemouth has already started to be shut down , it was on the local (Scottish Borders) news this morning , it must take a few days to run the plant down safely , so they have started the process now. Grangemouth supplies the North of England as well as Scotland , BTW.

i think the gvt should put all the extra money from VAT due to the price rises into a research group (public body) that has a sole task of inventing or developing fuel saving items and alternative fuel tech at a price that could be built into new cars.

So the fuel shortage is confirmed for Scotland & Northern England then, I just love it when the reporting is vague enough to then cause it to panic buy elsewhere too..

Will work from home today & grab the ferry to Holland overnight tomorrow I guess

If it happens it happens and really thats all there is to it.

I filled up with petrol but only because i need to.

If this does happen nation wide then the petrol stations need to sort themselves out this time. Last time it happened people were queuing to fill up with £5 and £10 worth of petrol which caused the mayhem.

Yes petrol has gone up so much but what realistically can we do about it? Nothing of great significance IMO

Couldnt agree more with you Matt - it sucks to see prices go up, and that it means I cant afford to go to the office etc, but nothing I can do about it other than working from home as much as I can lol

omg I better not fill up then in the hope this happens and i have the perfect excuse not to get to work

The fuel shortages have started. Queues round the block at Tesco etc.

Nothing to do with the strike and everything to do with panic buying.

I filled up on Friday when I was off work. I was wondering why the shell was so busy on a Friday afternoon.

If you consider the 20ppl rise over the last year, the government could help us by reducing the fuel duty by 3.5ppl and still collect as much money as they did in 2006-7, but that is a silly idea.

Looking at the graphs perhaps we should not complain too much, it shows petrol per litre to have approximately doubled since 1996, but crude oil prices have increased fivefold, someone must be absorbing these increased costs:confused:

With regards to closing down the refinery, there are also a vast amount of petrochem plants owned by Ineos on the site, the refinery is a pretty small part overall. I do not believe they will shut down completely, I imagine they will leave as much "hot" stuff running if possible to ensure as speedy as possible a restart.

I presume their figure of a month is to get the full plant up and running again and the refinery would be at full capacity within a week