‘This is bigger than party politics’
Ineos announced earlier this week that it was suspending operations at its three plants at Saltend Chemicals Park owing to high gas prices.(Image: PA)
A cross party group of Humber leaders have joined forces to press the Government to help secure the future of three chemicals plants employing 245 directly, and supporting thousands more jobs. Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart, Hull East MP Karl Turner, Hull City Council Leader Mike Ross and East Riding of Yorkshire Council Leader Anne Handley have written to the Prime Minister, calling on him to bring together relevant departments to “examine every sensible option” to keep Ineos’ Acetyls operation open at Saltend Chemicals Park.
Mr Stuart, who has also written for Hull Live on the concern caused by the move and whose constituency the “world-scale” plants are in, has warned of the wider harm caused if Ineos’ Saltend operation closes for good. The company has said the idling of the plants is “until further notice” having cited high gas prices for making their running uneconomical.
Writing in the letter, the four leaders say there is “still an opportunity to act”. They stressed the importance of preserving skilled jobs to support the PM’s ambition to reindustrialising the north.
They said: “We recognise that the Government does not control the international price of gas. However, Government does have important levers which affect the competitiveness of British industry, including energy taxes and levies, industrial energy relief, support for strategically important industries, trade policy and longer-term decisions about Britain’s energy supply.
“Other industrial countries facing the same international pressures have intervened to help energy intensive manufacturers remain competitive. We believe Britain must show the same determination. The immediate priority should be to establish what can be done to get these plants producing again while the workforce and industrial capability remain in place.”
Ineos owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said the Hull plants are among the most efficient in Europe, but added gas prices, which are now 12 times the level in the US and eight times that of China, had forced the decision. Energy minister Michael Shanks called on Sir Jim “to be part of the solution” and work with the Government on its reindustrialisation plans.
Mr Stuart added: “This is bigger than party politics. We all want the same thing: those 245 skilled people still working at Saltend and these plants producing again. That’s why Karl, Mike, Anne and I are coming together to take the case directly to the Prime Minister. Luke is writing separately and Emma and Diana are making their views clear within Government too.
“The plants haven’t closed permanently. The workforce is still together. That gives us something to fight for, but the window won’t stay open forever. Saltend also exposes a much bigger problem for Britain. We can talk about reindustrialising the North, but we have to make it economically possible for the industries already here to compete.
“I want the Prime Minister to get the relevant Ministers around the table with Ineos and look at every credible option for getting these plants producing again. We have already lost Vivergo next door. We must do everything we reasonably can to stop the same thing happening here.”
The shock news at Saltend has caused concern across region, with some 4,000 jobs thought to be supported by the Ineos sites.
Ian Kelly, CEO of Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce, said: “I was speaking to Rob Fergie, Ineos’s excellent site manager at Saltend yesterday. Obviously the news coming out of Beverley Grammar School lad, Sir Jim Radcliffe’s office, is a major concern.
“Let’s hope attempts to buy liquified natural gas from the USA can help short term, but the dizzying array of changes at the px managed site in the last few years including Vivergo closing its bioethanol plant there, Yara halting ammonia production in 2025, and plans for hydrogen still uncertain, this is another major worry.
“Let’s hope the short term measures now being taken and the longer term market conditions may abate so that these cutting edge plants are not lost and the BP oil site established in the 1930’s has some new chapters left to tell in its story.”
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