Upgrade the UK's chemicals industry or risk thousands more jobs moving overseas

To prevent this and secure jobs for both current and future generations, we must invest in renewable raw materials and focus on upgrading and decarbonising our chemical plants.

We have already lost hundreds if not thousands of jobs since 2020, with chemicals plants shutting down and shrinking operations. These were quality, family-sustaining jobs.  In regions where there are high levels of unemployment and poverty, chemical plants pay higher than average wages.   

In recent years, the UK has seen numerous chemical plant closures. In many cases, the same company that shutters a site in the UK is simultaneously investing in Europe or the USA. Chemicals companies are building or upgrading facilities that address the challenges of the future, by reducing energy demand, cutting carbon emissions or producing new zero carbon raw material.  

Unfortunately, this type of future proofing investment rarely goes to the UK.  

Here are just some of the chemicals plants shut down in the UK in the last 5 years: 

• Ineos closed their Acrylonitrile plant at Seal Sands in 2020 1 , with 145 job losses. At the same time, Ineos invested in a green nitrile plant in the US 2 and a brand-new manufacturing facility in Cologne.3
• CF Industries closed their fertiliser production plant at Ince, Cheshire with the loss of 283 jobs. Some production was transferred to their other UK plant at Billingham.  
• However, CF Industries also shut their Billingham  ammonia plant with 38 job losses.4 The Billingham plant now imports ammonia from the USA. Meanwhile, CF Industries have invested in green ammonia production in the USA5 . 
• Mitsubishi announced the closure of their UK methacrylate plant at Teeside in 2023 6 , with over 200 job losses.  
• BASF announced the closure of its hexamethylene diamine plant in Teeside in 2022 7 , with 390 job losses. This was despite benefitting from a £1 billion loan under the covid corporate financing facility (CCFF). The production was transferred to France, along with the announcement that a new plant would be built there and German production expanded.8  

The chemicals industry is changing. Like automotive and steel today, there will be a race to make the climate-compatible chemicals of the future.  

Over the next two decades, there will be increased importance for sustainable feedstocks, which both decarbonise the industry itself, and beneficially impact the value chain. Methanol and ammonia are anticipated to be crucial chemicals for the net zero transition, with their demand forecast to grow 4-5 times to satisfy demand for green shipping, hydrogen, and other derivatives. 9 This demand will be for low or net zero carbon materials.  

The UK does not currently manufacture methanol, and recently closed an ammonia site. We have no green methanol or green ammonia plants. 

Meanwhile, other countries are already investing in the chemicals of the future: 

• In Spain, a plan to build one of the world’s largest green methanol plants has been announced by Cepsa and C2X.10   
• In Norway, a joint project between CRI, Statkraft and Finnfjord plans to build a 100,000 t/y green methanol plant.11
• Yara International have opened the largest green hydrogen plant in Europe in 2024, which will be used to make ammonia for their fertiliser business.12

Whilst the UK has announced several schemes, including large scale green hydrogen production, currently, these remain at an early stage (when they have started at all).  

The chemicals industry can be the source of high levels of high-quality employment in the future, but without investment, support, and worker voice, the risk is further decline, reliance on imports for basic chemicals, and we will miss out on opportunities for growth and sustainable jobs. 

Unions need to be at the heart of this process. Our members are highly skilled and invested in the success of the industry. They also live in communities that can thrive with a vibrant industry, but too often we have seen the workforce ignored, and devastation to jobs and communities. 

We urgently need strategic investment, with government support and an active industrial strategy, to modernise the industry and make it fit for the challenges of the future, with unions being involved in all stages. 

The UK has an opportunity to create a modern, future proofed chemical industry, with long-term sustainable jobs, but time is running out. If we don’t act now, it will be too late. 

• 1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-50830573
• 2  https://www.ineos.com/businesses/ineos-nitriles/news/trillium-renewable-chemicals-selects-ineos-green-lake-for-worlds-first-demonstration-plant-for-sustainable-acrylonitrile-production/
• 3 https://www.ineos.com/businesses/ineos-nitriles/news/ineos-nitriles-to-invest-in-new-world-scale-acetonitrile-plant-at-its-koln-facility-to-meet-european-demand/
• 4 https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2023/billingham-ammonia-plant
• 5 https://www.cfindustries.com/newsroom/2023/cf-nextera-mou-green-hydrogen
• 6 https://mcc-methacrylates.com/approval-of-cessation-of-the-production-of-methacrylates-at-the-cassel-site/
• 7 https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/basf-tightens-austerity-belt-and-closes-plant-in-north-of-england/4013251.article
• 8  https://www.basf.com/global/en/media/news-releases/2022/01/p-22-102.html
• 9 https://www.systemiq.earth/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Main-report-v1.20… p10
• 10 https://www.cepsa.com/en/press/cepsa-and-c2x-will-develop-the-largest-green-methanol-plant
• 11  https://carbonrecycling.com/about/news/commercial-scale-etl-plant-under-development-in-norway
• 12 https://www.yara.com/corporate-releases/yara-opens-renewable-hydrogen-p…