Swiss company INEOS rips off UK,wages war against its UK employees

[Uptowngirl]

 

Not sure why you have something against this particular one tho, it's no different to any other.

 

Dug a big hole and fell into it? Hasn't realised how deep the hole is an just keeps digging.

[chalga]

Dug a big hole and fell into it? Hasn't realised how deep the hole is an just keeps digging.

 

There's not much digging to do,it's all there online........I just brought it all together in one thread.Everybody who reads it can make their own mind up,I know I have.

[geared]

So will you start a new thread about Google, Apple, Starbucks etc?

 

How much space do you need to vent your spleen on big banks like HSBC and RBS??

Could you even research them without going into a fit?

[foxy lady]

There's not much digging to do,it's all there online........I just brought it all together in one thread.Everybody who reads it can make their own mind up,I know I have.

 

I think you just cherry picked to suit the position you adopted. That would be the Sheffield position.

 

Most folk around the world would see Jim Radcliffe as a man who from nothing built up a highly profitable business that saved several failing companies and provides jobs for 15000 employees. The Sheffield take on that would be a man who has made himself rich whilst making those in charge of a trade union look like utter fools.

[chalga]

So will you start a new thread about Google, Apple, Starbucks etc?

 

How much space do you need to vent your spleen on big banks like HSBC and RBS??

Could you even research them without going into a fit?

 

it's pretty well documented about most of the others,INEOS just needed a bit more publicity about how they operate,being 'the biggest company you never heard of'.........well a few more have heard of them now....all part of the service.

[foxy lady]

it's pretty well documented about most of the others,INEOS just needed a bit more publicity about how they operate,being 'the biggest company you never heard of'.........well a few more have heard of them now....all part of the service.

 

I think you probably overestimate your own importance. I think the only thing that you have publicised is your own lack of understanding of business and what a shower of self serving idiots run Unite.

 

You probably missed the fact that you can boycott McDonald's, Starbucks etc. But I'm not sure that the 2 people that have read your rants and agreed with you are going to stop putting petrol in their cars. If indeed the number is as high as two.

[chalga]

I think you probably overestimate your own importance. I think the only thing that you have publicised is your own lack of understanding of business and what a shower of self serving idiots run Unite.

 

You probably missed the fact that you can boycott McDonald's, Starbucks etc. But I'm not sure that the 2 people that have read your rants and agreed with you are going to stop putting petrol in their cars. If indeed the number is as high as two.

 

Oh dear,not gone down well has it?........like I said,everybody can read it and make their own minds up,if your opinion is different from mine,guess what.......I couldn't care less............Oh,by the way,it's 'Ratcliffe',better get it right or he might come asking for money from you.

[Bigthumb]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2859290/Chlorine-plant-given-50m-to-stay-open.html

 

INEOS.......the wolf that keeps on crying,Runcorn 2003,recognise the familiar story,the demands the threats against its workforce..........the government of the day gives in and awards INEOS 50m of taxpayers money,because INEOS didn't do its job properly,its due diligence when buying the plant..........so somebody else has to pay for INEOS mistake.

But despite the 50m UK taxpayers giveaway to it,INEOS still thought fit to re locate to Switzerland to save itself paying its fair share,allegedly has not paid tax in the UK since 2008,got tax relief on its huge debts,and plans to ask for more UK taxpayers money to invest in its failing business............it's all take,take take for them,and threaten if they don't get what they want,even when they are at fault for the money that it is costing them

 

 

QUOTE:

 

 

The Government yesterday bowed to pressure from chlorine maker Ineos Chlor, awarding the business £50m to modernise its Runcorn manufacturing plant in a bid to safeguard jobs in the area.

 

 

Ineos Capital, a private equity firm which acquired the chlorine business from ICI over two years ago and is Chlor's parent company, had threatened to close the plant if money was not forthcoming.

The company has not paid a penny in cash to acquire the chlorine plant. Instead it gave ICI a loan note for £50m in exchange for 85pc of the company - a debt that ICI has since written down.

This indicates that the chemical company, which still owns 15pc of the Runcorn plant, does not anticipate repayment. ICI has also written down the £100m that it had agreed to lend the company to help it run Chlor, even though Ineos has not yet drawn down all of that loan.

He said that the company had not realised when doing due diligence at the site that it would need to replace the old cellrooms in the plant, which use mercury, with new cellrooms using membrane technology. "We came to the conclusion fairly quickly that the Runcorn plant was going to struggle to be long-term competitive," he said.

 

 

Ineos has threatened to sue ICI for selling them the business in a worse condition than it had expected. Yesterday, it dropped the suit after the chemical giant agreed to pay £60m towards refurbishing the Runcorn plant - £15m more than Ineos Capital will have to put towards the planned refurbishment.

 

This is rather more up to date. I suspect that the Unite union may have been suckered into helping INEOS out of a difficult corner. They do have rather a lot of spare capacity in rather more up to date facilities..

http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp?code=gf75g5h4&headline=COLUMNGrangemouth_refinery_falls_victim_to_US_shale_Kemp

 

LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - There is probably no long-term commercial future for the oil refinery and associated petrochemicals plant at Grangemouth in Scotland even if the current owners, Ineos and PetroChina, can resolve their dispute with workers and the labour union.

 

Excess capacity in the refining industry, especially in Europe, and the shale revolution in North America will continue to pressurise Grangemouth and Britain's other oil refineries.

 

It is hard to see what strategic advantage Grangemouth possesses that will enable it to compete with new refineries and petrochemical facilities planned or under construction in Asia and North America.

 

Every plant closure is a tragedy for those whose livelihoods are destroyed. Britain's politicians are right to push for a compromise between Grangemouth's owners and workforce if it can keep the site open a few more years. But they should resist the temptation to offer financial support to a plant that may eventually be doomed anyway.

 

MORE COMPETITION

 

Like their counterparts in continental Europe and the East Coast of the United States, Britain's refineries are old, small and relatively unsophisticated.

 

But soaring output of easy-to-refine crudes from the Bakken shale has thrown a lifeline to East Coast refineries in the United States; Britain's and Europe's refineries have no such advantage.

 

British and European refineries are further hamstrung by the growing mismatch between their product slate (a balance between gasoline and diesel) and consumer demand (which has been tilted towards diesel).

 

The traditional export markets for Europe's excess gasoline production in North America have dried up as a result of the shale boom.

 

Now European refiners find themselves competing with U.S. rivals as well as the new generation of large-scale super-modern refineries in Asia and the Middle East for limited export markets in Africa and Latin America.

 

Grangemouth's product slate - 22 percent gasoline, 24 percent diesel, 13 percent kerosene and jet fuel, 15 percent fuel oil, and 12 percent petrochemical feedstocks, as well as some other products, according to the UK Petroleum Industry Association - is out of kilter with current market demand.

 

In the short and medium term, smaller, older refineries like Grangemouth will struggle to earn decent returns making fuels.

 

Petrochemicals have traditionally offered a route to adding more value. But Grangemouth and other European refiners face increasing competition here too.

 

Once again, the changing competitive landscape stems from the North American shale boom. Production of natural gas liquids (NGLs) like ethane and propane is soaring along with oil and gas output in the United States.

 

Cheap gas coupled with the plentiful availability of NGLs is encouraging heavy investment in new petrochemicals plants along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

 

In January 2013, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), the trade association for energy intensive industries, released a list of more than 100 new manufacturing facilities, totalling $95 billion of investment, which are planned or under construction as a result of cheap gas prices.

 

More than 30 of the plants would produce bulk petrochemicals of the sort Grangemouth makes, according to the letter IECA sent to the U.S. Department of Energy.

 

RATIONALISATION

 

Ineos has said it will invest a further 300 million pounds ($485.03 million) to build terminal facilities at Grangemouth and enable it to bring in ethane from the United States. But it is hard to see how that can be a source of sustainable advantage when rival petrochemical plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast will be much closer to the source of feedstock.

 

Britain (and Europe) has too many refineries producing the wrong mix of products. Some refineries somewhere will have to close.

 

If Grangemouth stays open, another European refinery will have to shut (which is one reason why the European Commission will be monitoring developments in Scotland closely to ensure that EU rules on state aid are not broken).

 

Coryton refinery, on the Thames Estuary near London, has already ceased production. The tank farms, wharves, pipelines and associated infrastructure are being converted into terminal for importing products refined elsewhere.

 

In the same way, Grangemouth's future as a refinery and petrochemical plant has to be weighed against the option of converting it into a terminalling operation.

 

POLITICAL POWER PLAY

 

All sides have sought to exploit the current dispute. Labour organisers appear to have overplayed their hand and are now offering a deal to avert closure. Ineos is pushing hard to extract concessions on pensions and compensation, remove troublesome labour organisers, and reaffirm its right to manage the plant.

 

Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change, and politicians in the devolved administration in Scotland, have all rushed to broker a compromise, as well as seeking an alternative "strategic buyer" for the plant, in a bid to avert closure.

 

But there is likely to be little interest. No strictly commercial buyer wants a small ageing refinery in Western Europe and an associated petrochemical plant. "Strategic buyer" appears to be code for one not worried about profitability in the short or medium-term.

 

Most of those mentioned so far have been state-owned oil companies from China, or perhaps another petroleum producer from an emerging market country. But why would they want to buy a refinery and petrochemicals operation, rather than turn Grangemouth into a simple import terminal?

 

Despite its local causes, the showdown at Grangemouth is symptomatic of a much broader, strategic shift that has put much of Britain's refining and petrochemicals business under threat.

 

Some commentators have suggested Grangemouth (and presumably the other six refineries in Britain) must be kept open to avoid becoming dependent on imported products, as a matter of national security.

 

But Britain already relies on imports for much of its diesel, jet fuel and natural gas. The concept of self-reliance in oil refining is a myth that belongs to an earlier era.

 

Perhaps Grangemouth can survive by charging what are euphemistically known as "premium prices" to customers in its captive markets in Scotland and the north of England - but that just means Scottish motorists will be subsidising the refinery every time they fill up their cars and trucks with "premium" petrol when they could use cheaper fuel imported from elsewhere.

 

The current disputes over disciplinary processes and compensation are a sideshow. Grangemouth's fate will be decided by the global forces remaking the refining and petrochemicals business, and the outlook does not look good.

 

 

© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Click For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

[wellyman]

Talk about "thy neighbour's eye"

 

Hillpig claimed that the Grangemouth closure would increase fuel prices, and the context provided by the rest of his post strongly suggested that this was meant on a UK-wide basis.

 

Even if this was not meant on a UK-wide basis, and we're only looking at Scotland, nothing stops Holyrood from asking Westminster to lower duty in the area concerned/for the whole of Scotland, in the exact same way Westminster just asked the EC to lower duty.

 

After all, they're wanting to become independent. So, what of the proposed UK Gvt investment then? Spend £150m of UK taxpayers' money for safeguarding independent Scots' jobs working for a UK tax avoider?

 

Great thinking

 

I think what has been predicted is that should Grangemouth close fuel in Scotland and the far north of England will increase by around 10p/litre. The problem for Grangemouth is it produces the wrong fuels and has to export much of its output. It also cannot increase the refinery price to customers to the south as it will be undercut on price.

 

So you are right. The company is benefiting Scotland but not England to any degree. If Grangemouth shut an independent Scotland would need to import its fuel at a price that reflected transport costs. It would very likely cripple Scottish industry and therefore the Scottish economy.

[geared]

One solution that might be trumpeted is to reduce the fuel duty on just petrol significantly, to tilt the fuel market back in favour of petrol and hence tilt the market back in favour of the Grangemouth plant.

 

Afterall it was the government who tilted the market in favour of diesel in the first place - by making fuel so damn expensive that everyone sought to buy the most frugel cars possible.