Exactly a year ago this week, the INEOS petrochemical business at Grangemouth in Scotland was facing closure. This would have been a disaster for the thousands of people employed directly and indirectly, as well as for Scotland. The blog was very closely involved in helping to achieve a successful outcome alongside the Scottish and UK governments, INEOS and the UNITE […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Lessons from Grangemouth – how Europe can revive its industrial base
Sometimes a crisis can concentrate minds on one key issue. This was certainly the case last week, when the blog was part of the tense debate over the future of the INEOS petrochemical plant at Grangemouth, Scotland involving the UK and Scottish governments, INEOS and the UNITE union. The experience highlighted some critical learnings for the future of […]
PetroChina offer $1bn for INEOS European refining JV
INEOS have today announced that PetroChina have made an “irrevocable offer of $1.015bn for a 50% share in its European refining business“. This is an excellent price, given the current weak performance of the European refining industry. INEOS’ negotiating team have clearly done a superb job in ensuring that PetroChina looked beyond these difficulties, and […]
INEOS plans refining/technology JVs with PetroChina
The Falkirk Herald, INEOS’s local newspaper in Scotland, has had to wait a long time for its ‘scoop’ of June 2009 to be confirmed. It had reported then that INEOS was in talks with PetroChina about the future of the Grangemouth refinery. As PetroChina noted at the time, “downstream business has a poor margin nowadays […]
UK media speculate over Ineos asset deals as EBITDA doubles
A week ago, the BBC carried a report that PetroChina had completed “preliminary work” on a possible bid to buy a stake in Ineos’ Grangemouth refinery. The BBC quoted Ineos as confirming it was in talks with “a number of parties” over the future of Grangemouth, whilst cautioning that “the discussions with interested parties are […]
Ineos appoint Morgan Stanley for Grangemouth
The blog’s close eye on Scotland’s media has again been rewarded this morning, as ‘The Scotsman’ reveals that Ineos have appointed Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, to advise on the sale of Grangemouth. It suggests that a company such as “PetroChina could buy the refinery, while Ineos would retain the polymer and petro-chemical processing plants […]
Ineos talks of PetroChina deal for Grangemouth
The ‘Falkirk Herald’, based close to Ineos’s Grangemouth facility in Scotland, is not normally the place that the blog would look for news of the potential sale of a major part of the world’s 4th largest chemical company. However, that is what happened today, when the ‘Herald’ reported that Grangemouth site manager Gordon Grant had […]
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