Reuters: Bankruptcy News: UPDATE 1-Coryton refinery workers hold London march for jobs

Reuters: Bankruptcy News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Coryton refinery workers hold London march for jobs Jun 14th 2012, 15:23 Thu Jun 14, 2012 11:23am EDT By Simon Falush LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - Workers fighting to save their jobs at the bankrupt Coryton refinery in Britain took their fight to Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday, marching to a court where he was giving evidence and chanting "we got sold out". Angered over what they say are plans involving Royal Dutch Shell to turn the refinery into a storage terminal, which would put most of the 900 employees and contractors out of a job - demonstrators shouted: "Shell, Shell, go to hell!" Shell declined to comment on the protest and on whether it had any plans for Coryton. Coryton, in eastern England near London, was one of several refineries owned by Petroplus, Europe's largest independent refiner before it declared insolvency. There had been hopes it could be kept going but its joint administrator said two weeks ago it would start shutting down. A trade union official said on Wednesday that oil major Shell, fuel distribution firm Greenergy and storage company Vopak were preparing a joint bid to buy Coryton as a storage terminal. Shell and Greenergy declined to comment on Wednesday. Around 100 protesters marched from the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the government district of Whitehall in central London to the Royal Courts of Justice where Cameron was giving evidence about his links to media baron Rupert Murdoch. "We asked for the government to talk to us face-face, as to why it's not in the national interest to keep plant open, and they said no one was available," said Jason Williams, 43, a process controller who has worked at the Coryton plant for 26 years. "So we said: 'If they won't come to us, we'll go to them'." Previously workers held a demonstration outside Shell's headquarters and, on Monday, protesters disrupted the supply of fuel heading to some petrol stations in the southeast of England. The Coryton refinery has a capacity to process about 175,000 barrels of crude oil per day and an additional 65,000 barrels per day of feedstock. It is being wound down as its crude oil supplies run out and redundancies are expected next week. There will be little disruption to fuel supply as a result of Coryton's closure, as a glut of refining capacity in the UK and elsewhere in Europe means petrol pumps will not run dry. Among other Petroplus refineries, Ingolstadt in Germany was bought in May by Swiss-based trader Gunvor and Cressier in Switzerland was sold to Vitol and Petroplus founder Marcel van Poecke. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions