The government is preparing a £50m bailout for Ineos’s Grangemouth plant, after Jim Ratcliffe asked for help in October
Chemical companies owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe had already been granted as much as £70m in UK state aid in the past four years, before this week’s £50m government bailout for its Grangemouth plant in Scotland.
State aid to Ineos in the last year alone was between £16m and £38m, according to government disclosures published this week. Since August 2022 the company has received between £28m and £70m.
The government stepped in on Tuesday to give Ineos £50m to support Grangemouth, fearing that without it the UK would lose its last plant making ethylene, an important material for making plastics. The government also backed a £75m loan guarantee, while Ineos will invest £30m of its own money.
Ineos had already closed the next-door oil refinery in September 2024 with the cost of 400 jobs, in a huge blow to the community and a political problem for the government.
