Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos Is Mothballing Three UK Chemical Plants Over Ridiculous Gas Prices

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is switching off three chemical plants in Hull, and he is blaming British gas prices for the shutdown.

His industrial group Ineos said its Acetyls division is mothballing the three plants at its Saltend site in East Yorkshire, the BBC reported. Two are already off, and the third stops in the coming days.

The trigger is the gas bill. Ineos said UK gas costs twelve times what its rivals pay in the United States and eight times the coal-based processes Chinese competitors run, and gas is a core ingredient in what these plants make.

"We are being forced to mothball some of the most efficient plants in Europe," Ratcliffe said, calling the government's energy policy "economic vandalism on an industrial scale."

The plants are not marginal. Ineos Acetyls is the only European producer of a set of chemicals that reach across the economy: acetic acid, used in vinegar, paint and glue; acetic anhydride, a key ingredient in aspirin; and ethyl acetate, a solvent that also decaffeinates tea and coffee.

The shutdown is a pause rather than a permanent closure. Up to 1,000 staff are affected, 245 of them working directly on site, but the BBC understands workers will be kept on while Ineos tries to buy liquefied natural gas directly from the US, a process that could take up to a year, or waits for prices to ease.

The price spike behind the decision has a geopolitical root. Wholesale gas has almost doubled in the UK and Europe since July, after the disruption of oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Israel war in Iran, the same Hormuz squeeze driving Europe's scramble to fill gas storage before winter.

Ineos is also lobbying London and Brussels for tariff protection against cheaper Chinese chemicals, and it argues its Yorkshire plants run cleaner than the competition, with half the carbon footprint of US rivals and an eighth of Chinese ones.

The government pointed to support already on the table, including £350m for strategically important chemicals producers and trade measures on foreign imports. It called the news a "concerning time" for Saltend workers.

The politics around Ratcliffe add an edge. He owns a large stake in Manchester United, has been a tax resident in Monaco since 2020, and told the BBC last week that he had lost confidence in a UK he described as "on the slide."