MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Group is considering investing in UK shale-gas exploration to secure raw materials for its chemicals operations in the country after a shortage threatened to close a plant employing at least 800 people, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The country’s biggest petrochemical company has charged a team of five people to look into options including supporting the nascent shale industry by investing in exploration and production.
"The reason for putting together this team is to look at what the options might be for us," said Tom Crotty, a director of the Rolle, Switzerland-based company. "We may buy into something that’s already there" or pick up acreage in the 14th onshore licensing round, he said.
Energy-intensive industries such as chemicals are having to compete with companies that have access to lower-cost materials in the US, where shale drilling caused gas prices to drop to about a third of European levels. While Britain under the Conservative-led government would like to replicate the US fracking boom, exploration has yet to get off the ground.
INEOS’s petrochemical plant at Grangemouth in Scotland faced closure last year as supplies of feedstocks from the North Sea dwindled. The combined petrochemical and refining operation, which employs 1,400 people, had lost about 150 million pounds (USD252 million) a year in the last three years, according to the website.
The company announced a "survival plan" in October to secure the long-term future of the site that includes building a gas terminal to import ethane from the US. It was forced to run one of its ethylene plants below capacity because of insufficient feedstocks, and the unit is expected to operate fully from 2017 following raw material deliveries from the US.
MRC