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‘No impact on Teesside’ say Ineos

Owners of the troubled Ineos site in Grangemouth say its Teesside plant will not be affected.

Ineos announced this week that its petrochemical plant in Scotland was to close with the loss of 800 jobs, after workers rejected its “survival plan” to tackle £10m-a-month losses.

The company operates its nitriles business from its Seal Sands near Billingham, employing more than 300 people.

A spokesperson said: “There will be no impact on Teesside from the Grangemouth dispute, the two plants are separate.

“The base at Seal Sands is our nitriles business, which produces feedstocks for carbon fibre. Its raw materials are from other places, and are not affected.”

Grangemouth is Ineos’ largest manufacturing site by volume, and supplies most of the fuel for Scotland and Northern England - including customers on Teesside.

An ethylene pipeline also runs between Grangemouth and Wilton, owned by global petrochemical company SABIC.

Bob Bolam, North East regional officer with Unite, said: “If Grangemouth stops supplying, the worry is that Teesside companies have to look elsewhere for a product, creating extra cost and transportation.

“It could put added pressure on Teesside and we would obviously hope that some resolution can be found.”

But Stan Higgins, chief executive of North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC), said there should be no adverse impact on Teesside companies.

“It is always regrettable when the closure of a UK chemical manufacturing unit is announced and I hope that union and management at Grangemouth can resolve matters as quickly as possible.

“They are supplying other chemical plants that make plastics, paints or fuels, with their raw materials.

“Taking out ethylene capacity in the UK should strengthen the position of remaining UK producers - such as SABIC on Teesside, but there are many other global factors.

“This won’t push up prices for Teesside companies, there should be no adverse impact on Teesside if Grangemouth closes.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .