Meetings between Scottish Government Ministers and Petroineos, PetroChina and INEOS minutes and materials: EIR release

Information requested

I am requesting an un-redacted version of the minutes previously released here under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations:

Since the refinery in question has now closed, any commercial confidentiality has expired, and there is public interest in accessing the complete version of these minutes. Please reconsider the redactions under Reg 10(4)(e), Reg 10(5)(e), Reg 11(2), and Reg 10(5)(a), applying a fresh public interest test in light of the closure.

I am also looking to bring this up-to-date. I would further request details of all meetings between Scottish Government Ministers and Petroineos, PetroChina and INEOS from 1 April 2024 until 1 August 2025, as well as a full list of attendees and minutes or discussion points at these meetings.

Finally I would like to request all reports, presentations or additional follow-up correspondence in regard to these meetings from 31 March 2023 until 1 August 2025. I would again point to the closure of the oil refinery and the public interest in publishing this information. Please let me know if you require further clarification.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response to your request

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations: 

• 10(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial information)
• 11(2) (personal data of a third party) and 
• 10 (5)(f) (third party interests) 

of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why these exceptions have been applied are explained in the Annex to this letter.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500481403 - Information Released - Annex A

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