Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe claims Europe cannot survive without his company’s products – Jonas Roosens/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images
British chemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe has urged Brussels to provide funding for his €5bn (£4.3bn) Belgian mega-factory, saying it will help Europe fight off devastating Chinese competition.
The billionaire Ineos founder warned in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, that cheap Chinese imports had pushed the European chemicals industry “well into a closure phase”.
Almost 200 European chemical plants had shut in the past five years, he said, warning that without the industry’s products, “Europe cannot run hospitals, feed people or build weapons”.
Sir Jim said Ineos’s Project One, in the Belgian port city of Antwerp, was “the first major chemicals investment in Europe for a generation”.
But it had missed out on financial support from the EU Innovation Fund.
He urged the €30bn ETS Investment Booster scheme to be “defined so that it can support projects such as ours”.
“Europe needs to start giving the type of support to industry that our global competitors receive from their governments,” Sir Jim said.
He was referring to China’s use of subsidies and incentives to drive low-cost production. Beijing’s support has sent Chinese factories into overdrive, so that many produce far more than their domestic market can absorb.
The surplus is exported, often at prices below the true cost of production – a practice known as dumping.
Ineos’s Project One, in Antwerp, missed out on financial support from the EU Innovation Fund – Jonas Rooosens/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images
The European petrochemical industry has been unable to compete with the cut-price Chinese imports, forcing factory closures across the Continent.
Sir Jim said Beijing’s subsidies had masked the fact that these factories were “overbuilt”.
“China does not have superior economics for chemical manufacture, so it is very clear that when our industry has shut down, prices will rise rapidly and consumers will suffer,” he warned.
Project One would produce ethylene, an ingredient used in making most plastic products, as well as polyester, antifreeze and PVC pipes. Sir Jim claimed its carbon footprint would be one third that of other European ethylene crackers.
“This is exactly the type of investment project that Europe should welcome and be supporting. Sadly, this has not been the case,” he said.
Sir Jim has repeatedly raised the existential threat of Chinese competition. Last November, Ineos launched 10 anti-dumping cases against China at the European Commission.
Chemicals lobby Cefic estimates that in the past three years the European chemicals industry has cut 20,000 jobs and shrunk its production capacity by 10pc.
European imports of Chinese chemicals doubled in the decade to 2024, hitting $67bn (£50bn).