Furious workers at Grangemouth oil refinery say they have a “significant mandate” for strike action as the closure-threatened plants’ assets were stripped to zero.
Owners Ineos said the site was effectively worthless as a result of repeated annual losses and the value of all assets, including property, plant and equipment had been written down from £400 million to zero.
Troubles at the loss-making plant intensified yesterday as Ineos were accused of blackmail over demands for £150 million in government cash to bail the plant out and keep it open past 2017.
Meanwhile, the dispute with the Unite trade union over what it called unfair treatment of its convener Stephen Deans escalated, with strike action now seeming inevitable.
Ineos said despite investing £1 billion in the site since 2006, the petrochemicals business had lost £150m in the last four years.
Calum MacLean, chairman of the Grangemouth petrochemicals business, said: “We had no option but to write down these assets.
“After four years of heavy losses, the petrochemicals business is effectively worthless. Without lower costs and an alternative source of additional raw material, it will close 2017, at the latest.
“We need the union to acknowledge this very real issue and start to work with us, to give the site any chance of a future, not to constantly threaten industrial action.”
Ineos is investigating the Unite convenor over whether his political activities with the Labour Party contravened company policies and accuses the union of interfering with its inquiry.
Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said: “Unite is ready and willing to resolve this dispute but the ball is now firmly in the court of the employer who, up to now, seems intent on intensifying this dispute for their own ends, rather than resolving it.
“What we won’t do is negotiate with a gun held to our heads and by that, we mean the provocation of the union and our members by Ineos.
“The opportunistic targeting of our convenor Stephen Deans is beyond shame. He’s being used as a pawn by Ineos as part of a wider agenda and it’s totally unacceptable.
“We also believe the company’s latest claims regarding the value of the petrochemical site are highly questionable.”