INEOS Acetyls to cut 60 jobs in Hull as it blames energy costs and 'anti-competitive trade' pressures
INEOS Acetyls has revealed it is cutting 60 jobs in Hull as it blames high energy costs and “anti-competitive trade pressures” for harming UK industry.
INEOS said it is cutting 20 per cent of the workforce at its plant in Hull as it urges the UK Government and European Commission to introduce urgent anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese and US importers to protect the chemicals sector.
The company claims that unless firm action is taken, more sites will close and thousands more jobs will be lost, not only at Hull but across the UK and European chemical industry.
In a statement, INEOS Acetyls said: “Sixty skilled jobs are being lost as a direct result of sky-high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices, as importers ‘dump’ product into the UK and European markets.
“Dirt-cheap carbon-heavy imports from China, produced using coal and emitting up to eight times more CO₂ than INEOS’s UK operations, are now flooding the market. These Chinese products have been blocked from entering the US by effective tariffs but face no trade barriers in the UK or Europe.”
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 £30m 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.
The statement added: “Despite this major step forward for industrial decarbonisation, the company now warns that without trade defence measures, (tariffs) progress will come at the cost of British jobs.”
“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.”