INEOS has announced that it is cutting 20% of the workforce at its Acetyls plant in Hull. The firm said the 60 jobs are being lost as a direct result of high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices, as importers “dump” product into the UK and European markets.
INEOS explained that cheap, carbon-heavy imports from China, produced using coal and emitting up to eight times more CO₂ than its UK operations, are now flooding the market.
INEOS is calling on the UK Government and European Commission to introduce urgent anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese and US importers to protect the chemicals sector. The company warns that unless action is taken, more sites will close and thousands more jobs will be lost.
David Brooks, CEO of INEOS Acetyls, said: “This is a very difficult time for everyone at the Hull facility. We have a leading-edge, efficient and well-invested site and the team here is highly skilled, professional, and dedicated. Making the decision to cut 60 roles was not taken lightly.
“We have explored every possible alternative but in the face of sustained pressure from energy costs, combined with unfairly low-cost imports into the UK and Europe, we’ve been left with no other choice. Our priority now is to support those affected and protect the long-term future of the site.”
INEOS recently invested £30 million at the Hull site to switch from natural gas to hydrogen, cutting emissions by 75%, the equivalent of taking 160,000 cars off the road.
“This is a textbook case of the UK and Europe sleepwalking into deindustrialisation. INEOS has invested heavily at Hull to cut CO₂, yet we’re being undercut by China and the US while left wide open by a complete absence of tariff protection. If governments don’t act now on energy, carbon and trade, we will keep losing factories, skills and jobs. And once these plants shut, they never come back.”
