Grangemouth refinery owner Ineos seems "determined" to spark a strike, union officials said yesterday before a stormy second round of talks.

Ineos provoked another war of words with Unite yesterday after a spokesman told Bloomberg reporters they had ordered a complete shutdown of the plant over the next few days, with all units in "cold status" before a 48-hour walkout begins on Sunday night.

But the announcement flew in the face of assurances to Reuters reporters two days earlier that they had accepted the union's offer of a skeleton crew to ensure the plant stays on "hot standby."

It means Scotland's crucial Forties pipeline could now take days to return to service safely following the strike - leaving the country even longer without fuel.

Ineos chairman Calum MacLean said yesterday he would still attend talks with conciliation service Acas "in good faith."

"Unfortunately, Unite seems determined to insist on one rule for union officials and one rule for everyone else, which is completely unacceptable to the company.

"It also seems determined to ignore the fact that a strike could destroy Grangemouth and cause significant damage to the whole of Scotland."

Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said yesterday it was "increasingly difficult to take the company seriously," while the union's campaigns officer Peter Welsh told the Morning Star he simply could not understand the company's tactics.

"I've never come across a company whose actions seem so determined to bring on a strike and run its operations into the ground," Mr Welsh said.

"If you're shutting that place down in its entirety, nothing's coming out from the pipeline - they would have to have some heavy-duty reserves to get by even a couple of days of this."

It was "pretty inevitable" that petrol pumps would run dry - "and not just forecourts - there's the navy, there's industry, all the airports too.

"There'll be serious repercussions," he said.

The dispute centres on the company's internal investigations of shop steward Stevie Deans.

The company claims that Mr Deans misused company resources, while the union describes the case as a campaign of harassment.