SCOTLAND is set to be hit by crippling fuel shortages within days after plans for a strike at the country's biggest oil refinery led to it being shut down for safety reasons.
Motorists could find petrol and diesel supplies beginning to dry up as early as Friday, the company which owns the giant Grangemouth plant warned last night.
Experts fear fuel shortages are likely to last for a month and the disruption is set to spread well beyond drivers to affect the entire transport and distribution network and even the emergency services.
More than 1,000 workers are due to walk out on strike on April 27 and 28 in a row with owner, Ineos, over pensions.
Yesterday Ineos began shutting down Grangemouth, Scotland's only crude oil refinery, on safety grounds. The process, which has never been tried before, takes several days. Restarting production is also a long and complex procedure.
Ineos said that as well as potentially cutting off fuel supplies to Scotland for a month, the north of England would also be hit. The Forties oil field, which pumps crude oil to Grangemouth, would have to cease production for several weeks.
Tom Cotty, their chief executive, last night admitted that the strike would cause "fuel chaos" but blamed the union, Unite, insisting that concessions had been ignored.
He said: "The union is well aware that a 48-hour strike will cause fuel chaos in Scotland and the north of England for weeks on end.
"This is a huge oil refinery and they know you can't just turn it on and off like a tap. A month is our best guess but safety considerations will be at the forefront of everything we do.
"It is not our wish to suspend production at Grangemouth but Unite has given us no choice. They have deliberately chosen a course of action that is the minimum pain for them but which will inflict the maximum pain on Scotland and the whole of the UK."
The imminent crisis will reawaken memories of the fuel crisis of 2000, when a protest by hauliers triggered panic buying from motorists, leading to shortages across the country.
Industry figures last night warned that a repeat of the panic buying across Scotland was now likely. Filling stations have between three and seven days' fuel supply left, depending on their location.
A spokesman for the UK Petroleum Industry Association said: "The danger is that people will dash out and stockpile fuel and generate shortages."
Pat Glancey of the Road Haulage Association said: "Our members are greatly concerned with this situation. It would be absolutely disastrous for us if the strike meant that petrol stations were going to run out of fuel."
David Capitanchik, a national security and oil industry expert with Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, said strike action could bring chaos to forecourts. "Any stoppage could also cause serious fuel shortages in Scotland and beyond for a month or longer."
A senior police insider confirmed that measures were being prepared to ensure that essential services would not be disrupted.
He said: "Our first concern is obviously to the wider community and to ensure that life in general continues along as unaffected by this as possible.
"What we do not want to see is people rushing out to petrol stations filling up their cars and other containers and trying to hoard supplies."
The UK Government and the Scottish Government are liaising to discuss ways to ensure supplies of gas, oil and other fuel are maintained. Ministers hope Ineos and Unite will reach a deal but last night the two sides were still trading blows.
Unite national secretary, Phil McNulty, said that Ineos was demanding cuts to workers' pensions at the same time as making £3m a day on the plant. "Industrial action is now inevitable," he said.
But Ineos said the union's claim that the refinery made £3m a day was "nonsense", and repeated that it needed to invest £750m in the site, which would not be profitable for at least seven years.
FULL STORY: Bank crisis, high street blues and now petrol pumps could run dryThe full article contains 692 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
