Strike closes major British oil pipeline

Reuters (excerpt) ^ | April 27, 2008 | Jeremy Lovell

[HAL9000]

LONDON (Reuters) - A pipeline carrying nearly half of Britain's oil was closed on Sunday as a strike over pensions began at the neighboring Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, operator BP said.

The refinery, owned by international chemical company Ineos, produces a tenth of Britain's petrol and diesel but also supplies vital steam to BP's Kinneil plant that starts to process the crude oil coming ashore from 70 North Sea fields.

Unions have rejected pleas to operate the steam plant at the level necessary to keep Kinneil functioning during the two-day stoppage which began at 6 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT).

~ snip ~

[Nathan Zachary]

Looks like it's going to be a long hot summer in the UK. With Brown's labor party the most hated in decades... could get real ugly, especially when the government tries to do the only thing socialist governments know to fix problems- raise taxes.

On the bright side you can get almost anywhere on a bicycle in the UK as long as you are heading east or west.

[UCANSEE2]

What good is getting a raise, if you cause the prices of goods and services that you use to go up the same amount?

[Winniesboy]

Why not north or south?

[Flavius]

ahm maybe because country is longer going north or south

[Winniesboy]

The current “end-to-end” cycling record - i.e. from Land’s End at the south-west tip of Cornwall to John O’Groats at the north-east tip of Scotland - is 1 day 20 hours 4 minutes 20 seconds (Gethin Butler in 2001).