Hundreds of workers at Scotland's only oil refinery on Sunday began a 48-hour strike that has forced BP PLC to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third of Britain's North Sea oil. BP said it had completed the closure of the Forties Pipeline System by 6 a.m., when 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth refinery in central Scotland walked off the job. The pipeline brings in 700,000 barrels of oil a day from the North Sea to BP's Kinneil plant, which is powered from the Grangemouth site. Energy industry group Oil & Gas U.K. said the strike, over pension issues, could cost $100 million a day in lost production. The main effect of the walkout was likely to be felt by the British Treasury ? which relies heavily on taxes from oil production ? and at gas stations in Scotland, some of which limited purchases in anticipation of the strike.
See "Strike at Scottish oil refinery closes major BP North Sea oil pipeline", Ben McConville, Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 27, 2008