A strike planned this weekend at a major Scottish refinery would force the closure of the key Forties North Sea pipeline, its owner BP said on Thursday, halving Britain's crude oil output.
Talks to resolve the dispute at the 200,000 barrel-a-day Grangemouth refinery, which collapsed late on Wednesday, are unlikely to resume and the two-day strike over pensions is set to go ahead from Sunday, trades union officials said.
The refinery has been gradually shutting down all week and the nearby Kinneil Forties crude oil processing facility will have to close, along with the pipeline, before the heat and power station at the Grangemouth is shut on Saturday.
"Without the power and steam, we can't keep the Kinneil operation running and so we would have to shut down," a BP spokesman said.
The 700,000 barrel-a-day Forties pipeline carries about half of Britain's North Sea oil production.
BP has said that it would need to start shutting the pipeline about 24 hours before the shutdown of the Grangemouth power station.
GAS PRODUCTION TO BE HIT TOO
Closure of the pipeline would also hit Britain's gas production from fields connected to the Forties system, equivalent to about 30 percent of current gas demand, according to the UK offshore oil and gas industry.
"This dispute cannot be allowed to disrupt the nation's oil and gas production and we urge the parties involved to take the necessary steps without further delay to ensure it does not," Oil & Gas UK's chief executive, Malcolm Webb, said in a statement.
