BP jobs are now under threat in Grangemouth

The company announced plans to cut 600 jobs linked to its North Sea operations this year and the next – job losses which amount to a fifth of the BP’s North Sea workforce – due to reportedly tough market conditions.

BP regional president Mark Thomas said: “We need to take specific steps to ensure our business remains competitive and robust.

“An inevitable outcome of this will be an impact on head count and we expect a reduction of around 600 staff and agency contractor roles by the end of 2017, with the majority of these taking place this year.”

It is not yet known how many workers will go at the Kinneil site, which is home to over 300 staff.

A BP spokesperson stated this week a breakdown in the figures for each area would only be available after a consultation process, which started yesterday (Wednesday), had taken place.

Falkirk East MSP Angus MacDonald said: “I have written to the company to seek urgent clarification regarding how many of their employees at Grangemouth will be affected.

“I have also written to the Energy Jobs Taskforce to ask what support can be provided for those faced with redundancy.”

Union Unite will meet with BP as consultations get underway and will urge the company not to go down the route of compulsory redundancies.

The BP bombshell comes a week after energy firm Cluff Natural Resources announced it had pulled the plug on its ambitious underground coal gasification (UCG) plans in the Firth of Forth near Kincardine.

The company planned to build the UK’s first deep offshore UCG plant, but that was put on hold when the Scottish Government put its moratorium on fracking and unconventional gas extraction in place at the start of 2015 and then followed that with a similar ban on UCG in October.