Plans for opencast mining near Neath have been refused – almost six years after the idea was put forward. The Unity drift mine, in Bryncwm, went bust in 2013 with the loss of 181 jobs, while Neath Port Talbot Council was awaiting more details about its proposal to start opencast operations. Administrators are still hoping to sell it and another opencast mine. Planning officers said Welsh Government energy policy now allowed mining only in “wholly exceptional circumstances”.
BBC 27th Feb 2019 read more »
A plan by Ineos to spend £500 million modernising a piece of key infrastructure in the North Sea is expected to help to sustain oil and gas production in the basin. The investment in the Forties pipeline system is part of a £1 billion scheme announced by the company yesterday. About £350 million will be spent building a new power plant to sustain capacity at Ineos’s Grangemouth refinery in Falkirk and a further £150 million creating a vinyl acetate monomer facility, which is used for a variety of industrial and consumer products, in Hull.
Times 28th Feb 2019 read more »
The future of the Grangemouth industrial complex appears to have been secured for decades after its owner announced a huge investment. Ineos is spending £850 million in Scotland to underpin its operations north of the border. There are 1,800 staff at Grangemouth across Ineos’s refining and petrochemical operations with a similar number of contractors also based there. It supports thousands more jobs in the wider economy and supply chain. Yesterday Ineos, which is controlled by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, 66, said that it would be putting £500 million towards extending the life of the Forties pipeline system which connects more than 80 North Sea fields with the mainland. The pipeline comes ashore at Cruden Bay north of Aberdeen and the oil and gas are then transported into processing and treatment facilities at the Kinneil part of Grangemouth. Ineos said that without the investment the operation, which transports about 40 per cent of oil and gas extracted from the North Sea to shore, would have been likely to close by 2030. Now it is expected to continue well into the 2040s. Ineos is also spending £350 million on a new power and steam plant.
Times 28th Feb 2019 read more »
The National 27th Feb 2019 read more »
Telegraph 27th Feb 2019 read more »
Herald 28th Feb 2019 read more »
FT 27th Feb 2019 read more »
Nine activists from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion have been arrested after they glued themselves to the front of a central London hotel to demand that the petroleum industry end its “deeply immoral” behaviour in driving climate change. Specialist police officers spent about two hours unsticking the protesters from windows next to the entrance of the InterContinental Park Lane hotel in Mayfair, which was hosting an oil and gas industry conference. Police put up screens to conceal the protesters from view as the officers detached them. Security staff had previously attempted to remove the protesters.
Guardian 27th Feb 2019 read more »
