Positive announcements on Grangemouth ‘hopefully soon’, says Scottish Secretary

Positive announcements about the future of the Grangemouth refinery will “hopefully” be made soon, the new Scottish Secretary has said.

Scotland’s only refinery is due to close as early as next year to be turned into a finished fuels import terminal, risking hundreds of jobs.

The new UK Government has so far refused to say if public money could be used to save the jobs at the refinery, owned in partnership by Ineos and PetroChina.

Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, Ian Murray – who was appointed Scottish Secretary after the Labour landslide – said the refinery was a “hugely important priority”.

“The Prime Minister and the First Minister discussed this on Sunday, it was the very first briefing that I got when I was appointed as Secretary of State for Scotland on Saturday morning,” he added.

“The bottom line here is we’ve got both governments fully focused on trying to find a way through in terms of Grangemouth.

“There will be, hopefully, fairly positive announcements soon on a way forward.”

There is a “huge opportunity”, Mr Murray said, in turning the refinery into a hub for the creation of aviation fuel.

But asked if public cash would be invested, he said: “The bottom line at the moment is that we don’t know the answers to those questions – nobody does.

“That’s why the Scottish Government, UK Government, the trade unions and the company are working very, very hard together to find a way through this huge problem that we have at the Grangemouth refinery.”

Pressed on whether funding would be made available, he added: “We’ll have to look at what we can do to try and find a way through this.”