MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, has today announced that it is to build a fourth hand sanitiser plant, said the company.
The plant to be built in Etian will be located to serve the hard hit hospitals in Paris and North Eastern France as well as meet the needs of Belgium. The company has also announced that it has met its ten-day target to build a hand sanitiser plant in Lavera France and has today started production of 1 million hand sanitisers a month.
Hand to mouth contamination is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people and there is a critical shortage of hand sanitisers across France and the rest of Europe. INEOS is focusing on meeting the needs of front line medical and care services as well as making “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers available for people’s personal use. These will be produced to World Health Organisation (WHO) specifications.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS says, “Now that production of the INEOS hand sanitiser has started, we are working on the fastest way to get them to where they need to be. I am confident that within a few days our sanitiser will start to be seen in hospitals, surgeries and people’s homes".
INEOS is the leading European producer of the two key raw materials needed for sanitisers – isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol, producing almost 1 million tonnes. The company is already running these plants flat out and have been diverting more of this product to essential medical use including in the new INEOS factories.
INEOS takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously. Its products are essential to the production of essential healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing. Its products purify the public’s drinking water. It produces raw materials for soap, phenol for aspirin and paracetamol, and its acetonitrile is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS adds, “INEOS is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. If we can find other ways to help in the Coronavirus battle, we are absolutely committed to playing our part"
Earlier this week, Moody's downgraded its credit rating for INEOS Group Holdings as a result of the pandemic.
As MRC informed before, the restart of the ACN plant of INEOS Nitriles in Seal Sands, UK with the capacity of 280,000 mt/year from the planned maintenance, which began on 27 July 2019, was delayed in late September for a second time because of technical issues. The plant was initially expected to restart at the end of August.
ACN is a feedstock for the production of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS).
According to MRC's DataScopr report, overall ABS imports to the Russian market decreased in 2019 by 4% year on year to 33,700 tonnes.
INEOS is a leading manufacturer of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products. It has 34 businesses, with a production network spanning 171 manufacturing facilities in 24 countries. From paints to plastics, textiles to technology, medicines to mobile phones - chemicals manufactured by INEOS enhance almost every aspect of modern life. INEOS had sales in 2018 of around $60bn and EBITDA close to €6bn. Its products make a significant contribution to saving life, improving health and enhancing standards of living for people around the world.
MRC