June 18, 2012:

LONDON - Around 180 staff will be laid off at the Coryton refinery in Britain next week, administrator PriceWaterhouseCoopers said, increasing the chances it will be turned into a storage terminal. Such a move would mean the vast majority of the 900 jobs become redundant. The plant directly employs 500 staff at the site, and there are around 400 contractors.  "The administrators today met with staff and announced that approximately 180 staff will be made redundant next week," PwC said on Monday. "Conversations will take place over the following days with affected individuals." Workers were told about the layoffs at a meeting at which it was also announced there would be further redundancies in July, a union source told Reuters. "We get paid on (June) 22nd, and the first wave will be after that, with the second wave at the end of July." He said PwC reiterated its message that the most likely scenario was the terminal becoming a storage terminal.

"The impression I got was that there was no chance it will stay as a refinery," the union source said. Royal Dutch Shell, Greenergy and Vopak are interested in buying the terminal to turn it into storage, union officials said last week. Igor Yusufov is still interested in buying the plant, a source familiar with the matter said, adding that the former Russian energy minister would want a technical audit of the refinery before a deal could close, which would take until July.

By Reuters