Chameleon Magazine

By an Anonymous  Worker

April 29, 2025

GRANGEMOUTH — Today, without ceremony, Scotland gave up one of its last chances to stand on its own two feet.

After seventy years of operation, Grangemouth Refinery is shutting down for good.

Not because it had to. Not because we ran out of oil.

But because someone in a faraway boardroom decided it was cheaper to depend on somebody else. Our government, SNP gave up on the people of Scotland.

They gave up through inaction, laziness and lack of foresight they failed the people. 

They call it a “business decision.”

They say “fuel will still come.”

They tell us, with blank faces, “nothing will change.”

Tell that to the workers whose jobs vanished this morning.

Tell that to the towns around here — the garages, the shops, the cafes — that lived off the life Grangemouth pumped through their veins.

At first, they’ll pretend everything’s fine. The petrol stations will stay open. The planes will keep flying.

Until the day a foreign ship doesn’t dock.

Until the day world markets spike, and we’re left begging for barrels at whatever price we’re told to pay.

When you give up making your own energy, you don’t just lose jobs — you lose control.

You lose the right to say, “We can survive on our own.”

You become a customer in your own home.

We’ve seen this story play out already.

Yes, as of April 2025, China has effectively halted all imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States. This cessation began in February following the imposition of a 15% tariff on U.S. LNG by China, which was subsequently increased to 49%, rendering American LNG economically unviable for Chinese buyers. 

This is not a global economy now these are countries that are in competition with us. Hell, they will sell you their oil but they drive how much we pay for it. At least when we had a foot in the door with our own oil industry.

The British government managed to mess that up as well, and now we are going green, well a good example of going green can be seen in Spain and Portugal. The lights, went out and the internet went down, the trains stopped running and people were scared. This is what going green means, when it stops working you have nothing else because you put your eggs in one basket. 

We are not against change but at least make sure you have tried and tested it and are not reliant on some other country to support us. There is no brains in shutting down a healthy industry and then finding you cannot support the people, they will turn on you. 

But now, thanks to suits chasing short-term profits, we’re walking blindfolded into the same trap — giving up a refinery, and with it, giving up our resilience.

I’ve spent many years working at Grangemouth.

I raised a family on those wages.

I built a life around the idea that Scotland could take care of its own.

Today, they told me that idea doesn’t matter anymore.

They call it progress.

I call it surrender.

And worst of all, nobody seems furious about it.

Nobody’s even afraid.

They’re just tired. Beaten. Shrugging, like it’s just another headline we’ll forget next week.

I don’t know what scares me more — the closure, or the silence that followed it.