Stories tagged with "grangemouth"

A Real Time Example of Energy Quality- How Wind Turbines are Subsidized by Fossil Fuels

Posted by Nate Hagens on April 28, 2008 - 7:10pm
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: energy quality, eroi, grangemouth, wide boundary, wind [list all tags]

Global oil depletion is not immune to the Law of Receding Horizons, the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns, nor it seems to the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Grangemouth refinery shutdown has apparently caused work on a new wind farm in Scotland to shut down for lack of diesel fuel. Though at this stage this is a short-term snafu, it's a real time example of how lack of systems analysis of our energy problem will lead to unanticipated problems.

Tomorrow we will highlight another in a series of analysis on Energy Return on (Energy) Investment. Though measuring an energy projects profit and cost in terms of energy is very important, all energy sources are not the same, and the word 'alternative' does not connote 'equality'. In effect, quality matters. Despite some attractive substitutes to oil and gas from an energy return perspective, ALL fuel sources are now heavily subsidized by an infrastructure built and maintained by cheap and constantly available liquid fuels.

There's more… (664 words) | Comments (159) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Forties - Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system

Posted by Euan Mearns on April 27, 2008 - 8:00pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: alex salmond, bp, complex system failure, forties pipeline, gordon brown, grangemouth, ineos, olduvai gorge, pensions, strike, uk energy security [list all tags]

The sequence of events (covered here on The Oil Drum previously) that led to the Forties Pipeline closure on 27 April 2008 began in 2005 when BP, currently the UK's largest company, sold Innovene, their Grangemouth refinery subsidiary to Ineos. Ineos is privately owned petrochemicals company that has grown from nothing since its formation in 1998, fueled by debt reported to be €9 billion.

BP, once 50% owned by the UK government, used to own and operate the Forties Field, the Forties Pipeline system and the Grangemouth oil refinery. This is a tightly coupled complex system where oil from the North Sea flows by pipeline to Kinneil terminal where it is either diverted to Grangemouth to be refined and then combusted by energy hungry consumers or it is diverted to Hound Point for export by tanker (see map below the fold). The failure of any vital part of this complex system may close the whole system down. This system is now fragmented and its failure has just happened.

Failure by BP to recognise the dependency of the Forties Pipeline upon vital services provided by Grangemouth, and to provide contingency back up for their loss, is the principal cause for over 40% of UK North Sea oil and gas production now being shutdown.

Incident prone BP are of course not the only stake holder to shoulder responsibility and below the fold I explore the responsibilities of the Grangemouth Workers, Ineos, The Banks, Government and The Media in contributing to this debacle.

There's more… (2063 words) | Comments (55) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Grangemouth strike: Anglo Disease in action?

Posted by Jerome a Paris on April 27, 2008 - 7:51pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: anglo disease, forties, grangemouth, north sea, unions, united kingdom [list all tags]

Extended from the European Tribune version, which was itself inspired by earlier coverage here on TOD. More relevant background can be found in these two articles from a few months ago: UK Energy security and The European Gas Market, both by Euan Mearns.

Now that the news that the Forties pipeline has to close down is known, the blame game has started:

UK resists fuel curbs despite strike The UK is “nowhere near” having to impose emergency powers to restrict fuel supplies to essential users, the government insisted on Sunday, despite a strike forcing the closure of a pipeline that carries nearly half of Britain’s North Sea oil. (...) But the Conservatives sought to make political capital from the unrest. On Sunday, they argued that the strike was a byproduct of his weakness. “Whether it is teachers or whether it is oil workers or whoever else, they’re actually saying we can push this guy around,” David Cameron told the BBC. The Tory leader argued that Mr Brown was indirectly to blame for the dispute because of his changes as chancellor to employer pension schemes. “Who is the man who wrecked the British pension system? He is the prime minister,” Mr Cameron said. The Grangemouth workers are protesting over the company’s intention to close their final-salary pension scheme to new employees from August 1. Ineos has offered to suspend plans to make existing employees start making contributions, pending further talks.

I'd like to flag just a few points that seem to be typical of our times, and maybe warrant making this a symptom of the Anglo Disease, ie the wholesale domination of our economies by reckless financial capitalism:

There's more… (712 words) | Comments (20) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Grangemouth/Forties Update: Forties pipeline remains shut down (Thread 2)

Posted by Euan Mearns on April 27, 2008 - 11:01am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: forties pipeline, gas prices, gas supply, gasoline, grangemouth, oil, oil prices, refineries, scotland, strike action [list all tags]

Make sure to check out our Grangemouth/Forties poll--use this thread as the comment thread for it.

Latest:
• Grangemouth oil refinery is shutdown.
• The Forties Pipeline is shutdown
• Over 60 North Sea oil and gas fields are shutdown.
• About 700,000 bpd oil production lost costing £40 million / day @ $110 per barrel
• About 70 million cubic meters natural gas production lost per day costing £42 million / day @ 60 p / therm
• BP, Shell, Exxon-Mobil, BG Group, Conoco-Philips, Chevron-Texaco, Total, Marathon, Tallisman, Nexen, Venture, Dana and many more companies affected
• Global energy prices rise
• Rural Scottish economy hit hardest by fuel shortages
• Risk level is raised throughout the system
• Worker's grievance is unresolved
• Population calm, politicians panic, fuel rationing looms?

There's more… (1628 words) | Comments (129) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

ITN: Grangemouth/Forties YouTube--just for a little more flavor...

Posted by Euan Mearns on April 27, 2008 - 10:24am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: forties, grangemouth, peak oil [list all tags]

Comments (0) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version

Grangemouth: the origins of dispute (Thread 1)

Posted by Prof. Goose on April 23, 2008 - 1:45am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: gas prices, gasoline, grangemouth, oil, oil prices, refineries, scotland [list all tags]

[update 5 by Euan, 23 April]

Latest from the BBC (Wednesday evening)

BBC Scotland understands operators Ineos and the Unite union have failed to agree a halt to an impending strike by workers at the Grangemouth plant.

It therefore looks like Ineos will have to proceed with closing the plant which they say will take 4 weeks to restart. We'll be back with a fresh thread in a couple of hours.

[update 4 by Euan, 23 April]

Latest from the BBC (Wednesday pm) with a fine video:

As the hours tick by the likelihood of widespread disruption looks increasingly likely

There's more… (442 words) | Comments (73) | | Permalink | Without comments | PDF version