Category: INEOS

Closing Down Big Oil

Closing Down Big Oil was our contribution to the Edinburgh World Justice Festival 2020. At the event on 9th October there were contributions from Andy Georghiou, Brian Parkin and Neil Rothnie. In this post we’ve collated video, audio, Powerpoint slides and links which give a flavour of the discussion.

Andy talked about the local and global role of INEOS and the importance of petrochemicals in the debate on just transition.

Brian gave an overview of the rise of big oil, its dominance in the twentieth century and the necessity for its demise in the twenty first.

Neil brought the discussion back to the importance of the North Sea for the campaign for a just transition to a sustainable economy here in Scotland

Here are Andy’s slides as a Power Point presentation

In this audio file Neil addresses a question about the role of XR

And in this audio file Andy addresses a question on greenwashing and reflects on the overall discussion

Further reading:

September 2020 Oil and Gas Workers report – a review and links to the full report are on this blog – click here

The Sea Change report on North Sea transition and implications for employment

Some background to the Scottish National Investment Bank is here, while some questions and criticisms of how it is likely to be run can be found here and a recent article by George Kerevan is here.

Ineos and Fracking

Prior to the recent June general election it looked certain that a new Tory government would further ease the mineral planning regulations in order to ‘liberalise’ the exploration and extraction environment for prospective oil and/or gas shale fracturing activities. One particular beneficiary of such a move would have been the petrochemical giant Ineos which over the past two years has continued to add considerable gas and oil infrastructure and gas onshore as well as offshore deposits to its Scottish monopoly portfolio.

 However, the subsequent hung parliament has put such legislative moves on hold, although despite prevailing unfavourable market conditions outlined below, Ineos continues to lobby hard with a Scottish government ever attuned to the interests of corporate power. Brian Parkin explains.  Read the whole article here.

31192551434_199f2715b8_kImage by Pete Cannell – first session on new Scottish Parliament, licensed as CC0, Public Domain