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Billionaire industrialist Sir Jim Ratcliffe is pausing production at three chemical plants in Hull, blaming the UK’s “ridiculously high” gas prices.
Ratcliffe’s chemicals conglomerate, Ineos, said on Tuesday it would “mothball” three chemical plants because the cost made it difficult to compete in the global market.
Production has already been paused at two of the Humberside plants and the third is due to come offline in a few days, according to Ineos. About 240 people are directly employed by the company across the three sites.
Ineos said the number of jobs on Humberside that would be affected by a permanent closure would rise to 4,000 including those employed in the sites’ supply chains.
“I’m sure people will find it hard to believe that we are being forced to mothball some of the most efficient plants in Europe,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “[W]e just cannot compete.”
The Monaco-based billionaire claimed that gas prices in the UK were 12 times higher than in the US and eight times more expensive than the coal increasingly used by chemical plants in China.
The rising cost of gas in recent years has taken a heavy toll on Europe’s chemicals industry, including the Ineos empire, because it is a vital feedstock used to make the chemical building blocks required to manufacture products ranging from textiles and pharmaceuticals to detergents.
Gas prices tend to be higher in the UK than in other parts of Europe due to the country’s reliance on gas for heating and electricity generation. Historically this reliance was met by the UK’s domestic North Sea reserves, but as production declines the UK has become increasingly reliant on imports.
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The co-owner of Manchester United also said that the UK government’s energy policy was “leading to economic vandalism on an industrial scale” by losing jobs to China and the US “and driving up global CO2 emissions at a stroke”.
“Not only is the ridiculously high gas price in the UK destroying our manufacturing base and the jobs of hard-working people on Humberside, it is also massively increasing the environmental burden, with replacement products supplied from the USA at double the carbon emissions and from China at eight times the emission level,” Ratcliffe said.
A government spokesperson said ministers had taken “bold action” to support the UK’s chemicals industry, including the launch of a £350m co-investment scheme and trade measures on foreign chemicals imports.
The spokesperson said the government was preparing to tackle high electricity costs via a pair of discount schemes for manufacturers.
The first aims to reduce electricity bills by up to 25% for more than 10,000 manufacturing businesses, while a “supercharger” scheme will cut electricity costs for hundreds of the UK’s most electricity-intensive businesses by more than £400m a year.
“While this is a commercial decision from Ineos, we know this will be a concerning time for workers in Saltend and their families,” the spokesperson added.
