Ineos chief urges EU action on Chinese chemical imports and European plant closures

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, boss of Ineos, sent a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, warning that China is deliberately flooding Europe with cut-price chemicals. GB News reported that the letter states 200 chemical plants in Europe have closed in the last five years.

Ratcliffe wrote that China is intentionally overbuilding its chemical industry and dumping excess capacity into the European market at unsustainable prices.

He said high energy costs and carbon taxes have already stressed the sector, and the Chinese imports pose a further threat. The letter added that the closures put Europe’s ability to feed and protect itself at risk. Ratcliffe stated that the chemical industry is critical for national security and that action cannot move at a snail’s pace.

He noted that since Covid there has been a huge increase in energy costs and carbon taxes in Europe. He also said chemicals made in China have double the carbon footprint of those made in Europe. The letter called for implementation of the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act, currently under draft legislation, to include the chemicals sector.

Ratcliffe said the sector employs a million people in Europe. He pointed to Ineos’s £4 billion investment in Project ONE, a chemicals plant in Antwerp, Belgium, that will produce ethylene and cut carbon emissions by two thirds compared with existing plants. Ratcliffe said Project ONE has received no EU funding and is the first major chemical investment in Europe for a generation.

He urged the ETS Investment Booster scheme to support such projects in planning and execution phases. GB News reported that in March 2026 the UK’s Chemical Industries Association raised the issue of China overcapacity in a letter to Sir Keir Starmer.