Ineos

INEOS is a major chemicals company and a 50% owner of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland. It is part of the INEOS Group, a privately owned multinational chemicals company headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland, with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. Jim Ratcliffe is the founder, Chairman and main shareholder.

Sometimes described as 'the biggest company you've never heard of', INEOS has more than 80 separate firms registered at the UK Companies House. It the largest privately owned company in the UK. In 2013 the Group's turnover was £43 billion.

In August 2014 INEOS made its first move into onshore shale gas exploration in the UK, buying from BG Group a 51 per cent share of a licence covering 329 square km of the Midland Valley in Scotland, which included the area around the Grangemouth refining and petrochemical complex. Dart Energy owns the other 49 per cent.

Background

INEOS Group is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell). It employs over 15,000 employees at 51 manufacturing plants in 11 countries.

In the UK:

INEOS Group own and run major plant at Runcorn (chlorine and caustic soda, used in many products – pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibres, bleach, water purification etc), Grangemouth in Scotland (two high energy ‘crackers’ to produce commodity chemicals used in fuels, solvents, nylon, packaging etc) and have plants based at Seal Sands, near and linked to the Wilton cluster, in the North East.

It co-owns Grangemouth with PetroChina. In July 2014 INEOS received a UK government loan guarantee to build Europe’s largest ethane storage tank at Grangemouth.

Stance on shale gas

INEOS' website has a lengthy article outlining its views on Europe's 'dithering' in the debate over shale gas exploration and production. It believes that action to facilitate shale gas production in the UK is imperative or chemical production in other regions, particularly the US, will gain such a competitive advantage that UK production will become uneconomic.

The firm plans to use imported US shale-derived feedstock in their chemical plants at Grangemouth. INEOS is one of very few companies able to use shale gas as both a fuel and a feedstock.

INEOS has decided it cannot wait, and has struck a deal with the US to bring US raw materials to its European plants to maintain a competitive global Olefins & Polymers business. From 2015 INEOS Olefins & Polymers in Norway will begin taking ‘shipments of US-derived ethane – an essential ingredient necessary to produce ethylene.

INEOS warned in a report to the House of Lords EU sub-committee 'that rising energy costs threaten to undermine the ability of manufacturers in the EU to compete on the world stage'. Chemical industries that rely heavily on fossil fuels to run its plants were 'particularly at risk' it said.

'We are acutely vulnerable to fluctuations in energy prices,' said Tom Crotty. INEOS Group Director. 'We sell our products in fiercely competitive international markets and cannot pass on costs to our customers. But we cannot afford to operate in jurisdictions with uncompetitive energy prices.'

INEOS believes that Europe 'should shield energy-hungry industries from steep price rises' while it moves towards creating affordable low-carbon energy sources.

'If it doesn’t, production will be forced out of Europe to more competitive locations which will mean the loss of jobs, investment and tax revenue,' he said. Decarbonisation should not mean deindustrialisation, said Tom. 'The aim must be to connect industry to green energy supplies, not push industry away,” he added. He said energy-intensive industries were not ‘sunset industries’ standing in the way of environmental improvements. 'They are actually a vital source of raw materials and innovations required to make the green economy a reality,' he said.

Meetings on shale gas with UK government ministers and officials

• Stephen Lovegrove, DECC Permanent Secretary met with Jim Ratcliffe on 28 June 2013 at 3 Whitehall Place. The government's briefing notes described Ratcliffe as 'very well connected and has had a number of meetings with Ministers in various Departments and with Jeremy Heywood'. A section discussing INEOS' potential activities in shale gas was redacted from the briefing note. This meeting appeared to have been suggested to Lovegrove at a 'recent Lancastrian dinner' (held in April 2013). The focus of the meeting was 'primarily... about shale gas and the importance of supporting its development' in the UK.
• Duarte Figueira (Energy Development) Head of the UK Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil - with Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe attended the same meeting above.
• Jeremy Heywood

Legal action against Chinese companies over misuse of trade secrets

In March 2014 Ineos announced it was taking legal action against a number of Sinopec and Sinopec subsidiaries (SNEC, Anqing and others) for breach of contract and/or misuse of trade secrets.

INEOS says that Sinopec Ningbo Engineering Company has broken a long established technology agreement which, together with trade secret misuse by other Sinopec companies, has enabled development of a series of new world scale Acrylonitrile plants without INEOS agreement or consent. INEOS, which has otherwise excellent relationships with Sinopec and with China, has no choice other than to protect its intellectual property. INEOS fears that these breaches of rights will cause major harm to its Acrylonitrile business which generates up to $500m per annum of profit and has a replacement value of $3 billion. It supports around 5,000 direct and indirect jobs in the USA and Europe.

Affiliations

• All Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional Oil and Gas - Ineos is an associate member and has so far contributed £10,000, which was registered in June 2013.
• Parliamentary and Scientific Committee (an Associate Parliamentary Group)

People

• Jim Ratcliffe - founder and chairman
• Tom Crotty - INEOS group and external affairs director
• Calum MacLean - a founder member of INEOS in 1998 and chairman O&P Europe and chief executive officer O&P Europe (UK) since 2011
• Andrew McLachlan - senior account director
• Peter Rose - business development director
• Gary Haywood, CEO of INEOS Upstream

Lobbying and PR firms

External

• Media Zoo’s UK media relations and reputation management brief includes communicating with trade organisations and governments in the US and Germany, which are key markets for Ineos. Creative director Mark Killick works on the Ineos account. along with Andrew McLachlan and Hannah Brandstaetter

• Edelman

Internal

• Richard Longden (INEOS)

Resources

• Letter to the Editor Ineos, tax and China, The Guardian, Monday 21 October 2013 21.00 BST
• Nick Mathiason, Ineos tax deal sparks fury as firm plans move to Switzerland, theguardian.com, Thursday 4 March 2010 21.05 GMT

Freedom of information requests

• Letter regarding FOI request on INEOS introductory meeting with DECC Permanent Secretary June 2013, Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil (OUGO), dated 27 January 2014, acc 5 May 2014
• Emails, [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/275360/14_0127.pdf Em

ail exchanges of 30th June between Ineos and DECC Officials. Briefing material for 28th June Meeting 3. Email exchanges between Ineos and DECC Officials]

Contact

Website:

Resources

• US shale gas plan to make Grangemouth profitable, The Telegraph, 2 September 2013
• Simon Goodley, firm Ineos accused of ‘bribes and bulldozers’ approach to fracking, The Guardian, 28 September 2014