Ineos urges antidumping duties on US, China imports as it cuts UK acetyls workforce

Ineos has urged the UK government and European Commission to implement antidumping tariffs on Chinese and US importers to protect the regional chemicals sector after announcing job cuts on Oct. 7 at its acetyls plant in Hull, UK.

Ineos, which announced Oct. 6 that it planned to close two plants at its chlor-vinyls site in Rheinberg, Germany, said Oct. 7 that it would cut its workforce by 20% at its Hull acetyls plant, resulting in the loss of 60 jobs. The job cuts are "a direct result of sky-high energy costs and anti-competitive trade practices, as importers 'dump' product into the UK and European markets," it said.

Ineos closed chemical plants earlier this year at Grangemouth, UK, and Geel, Belgium, and is in the process of shutting its 650,000 mt/year phenol plant at Gladbeck, Germany. It has also mothballed assets at Tavaux, France, and Martorell, Spain, citing similar reasons.

Europe has seen a wave of petrochemical capacity rationalization and plant closures in the past two years amid structural market challenges of oversupply, weak demand and competitive imports.

In its latest announcement, Ineos said that cheap and carbon-heavy imports from China, produced using coal and emitting up to eight times more CO2 than the company's UK operations, are now "flooding the market." Chinese products have been blocked from entering the US by effective tariffs but face no trade barriers in the UK or Europe, it said.

Downbeat market sentiment

Ineos' announcement comes amid persistent downbeat market sentiment in the European acetic acid, acetic anhydride and ethyl acetate markets as ongoing sluggish demand for coatings continues to weigh on conditions.

However, in recent weeks, ETAC market participants have noted elevated buying interest, particularly from the flexible and graphic packaging sector, amid pockets of supply tightness.

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, last assessed the FD NWE ETAC spot price at Eur900/mt on Sept. 30, unchanged week over week, the spot FD NWE acetic acid price at Eur460/mt on Oct. 2, and the acetic anhydride price at Eur770/mt.

Tariffs call

Ineos called on the UK government and EC to "introduce urgent antidumping tariffs on Chinese and US importers to protect the chemicals sector." Unless firm action is taken, more sites will close and thousands more jobs will be lost across the UK and European chemical industry, it said.

David Brooks, CEO of Ineos Acetyls, said in the announcement that the company has a "leading-edge, efficient and well-invested site" at Hull, but that after exploring all alternatives, it had no choice but to cut jobs "in the face of sustained pressure from energy costs, combined with unfairly low-cost imports into the UK and Europe."

Ineos described its latest measure at Hull as being "part of the same structural crisis that is hitting chemicals companies across the UK and EU."

The company recently invested GBP30 million at Hull to switch the site from using natural gas to hydrogen, cutting emissions by 75%.

"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," it said. "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."

Ineos is the largest producer of acetic acid, acetic anhydride, and ethyl acetate in the UK and Europe.