Jim Ratcliffe says Britain’s chemical industry is dying.

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Britain’s chemical industry is headed for extinction due to a combination of high energy prices and a carbon tax, according to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, owner of petrochemicals group Eneos.

The company, which owns several petrochemical plants in Grangemouth, Scotland, and owns the associated refinery, shut down ethanol production at the site last week.

Although Ineos says up to 500 indirect roles will be affected across the wider economy, the 80 directly affected workers have been redeployed to the remaining chemical works in Grangemouth.

The group announced last March that it would end ethanol production due to declining demand in Europe and increased pressure on imports.

The operation, one of only two in Europe, produces synthetic ethanol, which is used to produce pharmaceutical drugs and other critical medical applications.

“We are seeing the loss of one of our major industries as the life of the chemical industry is squeezed out of it,” Ratcliffe said.

Deindustrializing Britain, he said, “did nothing for the environment. It shifts production and emissions to other locations.

Ineos He said the ethanol plant has been making losses for several years, particularly due to high energy prices in the UK, which have doubled in the last five years and are five times higher than in the US.

Ineos Olefins & Polymers UK chief executive Stuart Collins said: “The costs that particularly hurt us were around energy because it’s an energy intensive process and the source is natural gas.

At the same time, high carbon costs and cheap imports from countries like Pakistan put pressure on the country.

“We’ve seen a declining market, lower prices, higher costs and we’ve reached a point where it just makes sense (to continue operating),” Collins said.

The warning came from Britain’s Chemical Industries Association (CIA), the industry’s trade body. He warned at the end of last year As companies faced rising costs and declining demand, future investment was at risk.

The industry’s output has fallen by more than 37 percent since January 2021, he cited official data. Steve Elliott, CEO of the CIA, said the sharp decline was mainly due to “the associated costs and uncertainty around energy prices and carbon.”

Although UK manufacturers have long complained about paying higher energy costs than their European counterparts, industry across the continent has faced similar problems. More than 11 million tons of capacity It has been announced that it will close between 2023 and 2024, according to Sefik.

The sector was “seeing closures all over Europe,” says Innes Colling. “We’re saying to the government, ‘Wake up.'”

Eneos has said it wants to see action on energy policy and trade policy in the UK, as well as on carbon costs. A new energy policy should provide “international natural gas prices”. The current emissions trading scheme, in which big polluters trade “allowances” that allow them to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, acts as a tax on UK operators and favors importers who pay nothing, he said.

Manufacturers are also waiting for the government’s new industrial strategy. The CIA’s Elliott said that while engagement with business is good, there is nothing to give confidence that we will be part of the solution for energy-hungry industries.