Ineos to Mothball Three Hull Chemical Plants Over Gas Prices

Ineos will mothball three chemical plants in Hull, with billionaire owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe blaming the UK's "ridiculously high" gas prices for the decision.

The chemicals conglomerate announced the move on Tuesday. It said the cost of gas had made the Humberside sites unable to compete in the global market.

Ratcliffe, one of Britain's richest industrialists, said the company "cannot compete" with the global market despite the efficiency of the Hull operations. The plants will be paused rather than permanently closed, under what the company described as a "mothballing" of the sites.

The decision sharpens the pressure on UK policymakers over industrial energy costs. Ineos operates major chemical manufacturing capacity at Humberside, and the mothballed plants represent a concrete withdrawal of production from a sector that has long warned about the gap between UK gas prices and those paid by competitors abroad.

Ratcliffe has previously voiced frustration over the state of Ineos's finances and strategy. The company has been in talks to sell parts of the business amid rising debt, according to a report from earlier this year.

Tuesday's announcement makes the energy-cost argument explicit. Ineos framed the pause not as a failure of the plants themselves — which it says are efficient — but as a consequence of input costs that leave them uncompetitive against producers in other markets.

The mothballing leaves open the possibility that production could restart if conditions change. For now, the three Hull plants join a growing list of UK industrial assets idled on the grounds that domestic energy prices have priced them out of global markets.