Why the world needs a clean break

INEOS focuses on ramping up hydrogen production to help cut CO2 emissions across Europe

4
min 2021

INEOS is now channelling its energy and expertise into a new business which has just one aim: to cut CO₂ emissions. Its new UK-based business will focus on ramping up production of clean hydrogen across Europe – for its own sites, but critically for other industries now seeking affordable, low-carbon energy.

“We have already been approached by several potential strategic partners, ranging from other chemical partners to connections in the automotive industry,” said Wouter Bleukx, who is manager of the newly-formed Hydrogen Business Unit. “We soon hope to disclose more about these partnerships.”

INEOS-owned INOVYN is Europe’s largest existing operator of electrolysis, the same critical technology which can use carbon neutral energy to produce hydrogen for power, industry and transport.

It also knows how to store and handle hydrogen safely and is working on a first project to potentially store hydrogen in one of its enormous salt caverns in the UK.

“We are uniquely placed to play a leading role in developing these new opportunities,” said Geir Tuft, CEO of INOVYN.

INEOS produces 300,000 tonnes of hydrogen every year, mainly as a co-product from producing chlorine and cracking oil and gas to make olefins and polymers.

Most of the hydrogen is either burned as a fuel or used to make other chemicals.

But INOVYN believes more can be done for the greater good of society.

In the last edition of INCH, Chris Stark, CEO of The Committee on Climate Change, described hydrogen as the Heineken of fuels because of all the parts it reaches.

“We can use it to heat homes and power transport and industry,” he said.

He told INCH that it was impossible for the world to achieve net zero emissions – and, in doing so, drastically cut harmful CO₂ emissions – without it.

INEOS is already involved in several projects to encourage others to use hydrogen instead of gas and oil.

Its new Hydrogen Business Unit will work under the umbrella of INOVYN but its strategy will apply to all of INEOS’ businesses around the world.

It aims is to build a large-scale hydrogen production unit within five years.

Earlier this year the European Commission unveiled its own hydrogen strategy. Wouter said that this European roadmap, for widespread use of hydrogen across Europe by 2030 and beyond, presents fresh opportunities for INEOS’ new business.

“Hydrogen is an important part of a climate neutral economy that has been discussed for decades,” he said. “Finally, a hydrogen-fuelled economy is within reach.”

The Clean Hydrogen Business Unit will have its headquarters in the UK.
Our aim is to cut CO2 emissions across all INEOS sites and other European industries with the use of clean hydrogen.
INEOS will be ramping up production of clean hydrogen across all its European manufacturing sites.
The production of hydrogen based on electrolysis, powered by zero carbon electricity, will provide flexibility and storage capacity for heat and power, chemicals and transport markets.

INEOS Hydrogen - Fuel of the Future Website

INEOS is in a unique position to lead the transition to a hydrogen-powered economy. Over the next three years that business will be focussing on ramping up production of clean hydrogen across Europe, not only for INEOS' own sites but critically for other industries seeking affordable, low-carbon energy.

Visit the INEOS Hydrogen website to find out more

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The rise of the superbug

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Why the world needs a clean break

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It's time for a new industrial revolution

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Global thinking

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Hope for the future

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Going for gold

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2 min read

Zero tolerance

INEOS in Antwerp has pledged to beat targets set by the EU for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Hans Casier, CEO of INEOS Phenol & Nitriles, said concentrating on reducing emissions at source rather than just capturing and storing them will be key. “All our sites in Antwerp now have a clear, achievable roadmap,” he said. The plan will mean INEOS will reach net zero emissions across its business in the Port of Antwerp by 2050 at the latest. But it also takes into account the EU’s ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. A new €5 billion cracker and propane dehydrogenation complex will be built in Antwerp - and supplied with energy from ENGIE’s wind farm in the North Sea. The new complex will enable a step change reduction in emissions associated with the manufacture of olefins, the key chemical needed by the car, construction, transport and medical industries. In addition to switching to green electricity, INEOS also plans to extend its collaboration in existing industrial waste heat and steam networks in the region and increase the use of hydrogen in its chemical processes and power plants. The company is also involved in an ambitious plan at Lillo to mix captured carbon dioxide with green hydrogen to produce methanol, a chemical widely used in everything from clothing to fuel. The use of more recycled, or bio-attributed, raw materials, alongside gas and oil, is also being explored. "All these activities will be underpinned by an ongoing drive to improve the energy and resource efficiency of our processes,” said Hans. Although the focus will be on avoiding the production of CO2 , rather than waiting to collect and store it later, storage should still be an option for INEOS in the future. As such, INEOS can rely on experience at its existing carbon capture plants in Zwijndrecht, Tavaux, Lavera and Köln. Currently about 100,000 tonnes of CO2, which is produced as by-product of the ethylene oxide process at Zwijndrecht, is captured, purified, liquefied, sold and reused. INEOS draws up clear roadmap The roadmap has been drawn up to show INEOS the path to creating a climate neutral world. INEOS’ plants in the Port of Antwerp may be the first to set out on that journey. But they won’t be the last. “The roadmap will be rolled out and every business in INEOS will be able to look at it and see where they can implement changes to lower their carbon emissions,” said Greet Van Eetvelde, INEOS’ global head of energy and innovation policy. She has been working on the comprehensive roadmap with Matthias Schnellmann, Carbon Business Developer, for the past year. Together with INEOS’ sites in Antwerp, they have collected environmental data to set a baseline for a clear and robust plan to reduce emissions. The roadmap shows how INEOS can reduce its emissions by either switching fuels, using renewable raw materials, increasing the energy and resource efficiency of its plants, or capturing, using or storing the carbon. “Most of our sites are already energy efficient, so focusing on that alone will not bring us any significant gains,” said Matthias. “But switching fuels or using renewable raw materials will. We think it is better to reduce our emissions rather than capture and store them.” He said some sites produced hydrogen as a by-product which could be used by another site to reduce their carbon footprint. “Each site has different needs,” he said. “The solution is not going to be the same for everyone. But the roadmap will help them to identify areas where they can improve their processes to make a difference.” It is hoped the roadmap will create a climate of positive competitiveness across INEOS’ businesses and sites throughout the world. project-one.ineos.com/en

6 min read

Keeping the lights on

On the day the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, INEOS took decisive action. At that time, just over 4,500 people worldwide had died of this new, invisible killer and many governments were resisting national lockdowns, with some dismissing the virus as a ‘common cold’. But INEOS, which now operates in 29 countries including China where the virus is believed to have originated, was alarmed. “The fact that we are a global company was one of our strengths,” said Jeff Seed, SHE Director at INEOS. “Our Asian sites gave us a feel about what to expect and how we could potentially be impacted by the virus.” The message from Asia was clear: if you want to keep your plants and businesses running, protect your staff now. As a global producer of essential chemicals that the world would soon need more than ever, that advice was taken to the very heart of INEOS. “Safety has always been our top priority, and that includes operating in a way that is safe for all our operating teams,” said Jeff. “Our excellent safety performance record is based upon having clear procedures and rules.” A COVID contingency plan was swiftly agreed. Each business set up strict safety protocols to ensure their own employees stayed safe whilst continuing to operate the plants. All office-based staff – all over the world – were told to work from home. Businesses were told to identify critical personnel to operate and maintain the plants. “That was critical and we cannot thank enough those people who impressively kept our plants running safely,” said Simon Laker, the INEOS Group Operations Director. In addition, all non-essential work on the plants was postponed and all non-essential travel was banned. “If we had not acted quickly, we could have allowed the virus to enter our workplaces and made a lot of our employees sick very quickly,” said Jeff. “Not only do we want our employees to stay healthy, but this would also have taken them out of the workplace and closed the factories and businesses down.” Jeff was with Simon at INEOS’ Green Lake facility in America when INEOS Capital asked them to start preparing for the sites to continue working through the pandemic. “At the time we really did not know what the impact was going to be on our operations across the world,” he said. “But we were determined to continue to operate in a way that was safe for all of our operating teams.”  In the event of an outbreak of COVID-19, INEOS was prepared to shut down factories. Weekly calls were set up between the HR Directors of each business to monitor the situation by site and country. Regular board meetings within each business were also held to ensure each business could act quickly as required. In the UK, INEOS’ critical workers were regularly tested. “That was a really powerful way to keep ahead of the virus,” said Jeff.  INEOS’ actions meant not one of its factories had to close, except where mandated by country regulations. “Our strict procedures and rapid action ensured that we have kept positive cases under control and enabled our employees to stay safe whilst continuing to be able to run our operations,” said HR Director Jill Dolan.  Staff, who displayed symptoms of COVID-19, were told not to come to work. Since testing regimes varied by country, it was not always possible for these staff to be tested. “That’s one of the reasons why the precise numbers of positive cases in INEOS will never be known,” said Jill. “But this approach was key to keeping any spread of the virus to a minimum.” INEOS also ensured that those, who needed to self-isolate due to close contact with another individual, did so to keep themselves and their families safe. INEOS, though, did not just manage to keep its own operations running. Its early action meant it was also able to step up to meet the unprecedented, global demand for chemicals desperately needed to slow the spread of COVID-19 and help treat those infected. Production was ramped up at many INEOS sites with INEOS-owned INOVYN’s plants across Europe running continuously to produce sodium hypochlorite (household bleach), which had been recognised by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF as the best and quickest way to kill COVID-19 on hard surfaces. The company also built six factories in less than 10 days each to produce hand sanitiser and supplied millions of bottles to thousands of hospitals free of charge. By diverting resources away from non-essential work at sites in America, mainland Europe and the UK, INEOS kept the flow of chemicals to those making vital medical materials, disinfectants and equipment. Countries were also rightly concerned about protecting their drinking water supplies. In the US, utilities companies needed INEOS’ acrylamide and polyacrylamide to purify America’s water and UK water companies relied on INEOS to provides the chlorine necessary to keep 98% of Britain’s water safe to drink. “We acted sooner than many other big businesses because there was a public safety issue as well as a business interruption issue,” said Jeff. INEOS, though, knows the pandemic is far from over despite hopes that a vaccine will be ready soon. “We may not be out of the woods but the fact that we have managed to navigate it so far, keeping our employees safe and our plants running, is testament to the hard work and commitment of all of our employees,” said Tom Crotty, INEOS’ Communications Director.

8 min read

Shaping the future

Composites are shaping the world like never before. For unlike metal, they cannot only be moulded into almost any shape, but are tougher and lighter than steel, fire resistant and don’t rust. “In the past the deterioration of mild steel has led, in extreme cases, to catastrophic structure failure,” said Lynn Calder, CEO of INEOS Composites. The world witnessed that on August 14, 2018, when a 200-metre stretch of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa collapsed, killing 43 people. Experts say the bridge’s steel cables were encased in concrete which meant corrosion could not be seen. The steel tower, which also collapsed, was also encased in concrete. When steel rusts, it expands and can crack concrete. Composites work differently – and, as such, have found their way into cars, trucks, boats, homes, infrastructure, chemical plants and the sea where they can withstand the harshest of conditions. INEOS’ composites resins are also resistant to attack from chemicals. As such they have been used, instead of traditional materials, at many of INEOS’ manufacturing plants, including INEOS Pigments’ business in Ashtabula in Ohio. “Steel reinforcement in concrete bridges is also now being replaced with composite rebar,” said Lynn. Composites are also good for the environment. INEOS Composites’ resins have proved a key component in shaping the future for wind turbines because they are lighter than steel. In 2019 the world’s longest-ever wind turbine blade was built in Cherbourg, France. At 107-metres, it was longer than a football pitch. “These blades simply couldn’t be built to today’s extreme size, and generate the huge amounts of power they do, without the strength to weight ratio of composite materials,” said Lynn. INEOS, though, is also proud of the fact that it has helped to create a viable market for recycled plastics. In every 220kg drum of its PET family of composite resins are the remnants of about 1,800 recycled PET plastic bottles. “By using recycled PET as a raw material to make composites, we lock in the carbon,” said Lynn. In doing so, INEOS is also showing the world it is serious about its promise to use 325,000 tonnes of recycled polymer in its own products by 2025. INEOS Enterprises agreed to acquire Ashland’s entire Composites business, along with its European BDO business, in 2018 for $1 billion. The Composites business alone has 15 manufacturing sites in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East and employs 1,000 people. Ashley Reed, CEO of INEOS Enterprises, said composite resins had been the materials of choice for the world’s boat builders for 30 years and with good reason due to their incredible qualities. “We believe composite resins have great potential growth under INEOS ownership,” he said at the time. After the deal was completed in 2019, INEOS Composites became a business in its own right. Looking to the future, composite materials are well placed to overcome the challenges faced by the construction industry, which wants to use more environmentally-sound products. Andrew Miller, head of INEOS Composites Europe, said they was a growing interest in the market towards bio and recycled PET-based resins. “Fibre-reinforced plastic composites are easy to install and maintain, have a long life, and can be recycled so it’s easy to see why they will become far more competitive than conventional materials such as steel and concrete,” he said. INEOS Composites Global leader in unsaturated polyester resins, vinyl ester resins and gelcoats Corrosion Resistance Fire Retardance Ultraviolet Resistance Water and Chemical Resistance High Mechanical Properties Thermal and Electrical Insulation Impact and Scratch Resistance High Strength-to-Weight Ratios www.ineoscomposites.com

6 min read

Dispensing with tradition

INEOS has once again dispensed with traditional thinking. It has turned the humble hand sanitiser dispenser into a stylish gadget that will look good in the smartest of shops, offices, schools, restaurants and homes. “This is the first time a lot of people will have really thought about having a dispenser in the home,” said Oli Hayward-Young, whose job is to manage the project. “But if it is going in someone’s home, it needs to look good. It needs to fit with the décor.” Oli said many traditional dispensers tended to be ‘ugly, white plastic boxes’. “They leave a negative feeling the minute you walk into a room,” he said. “This is a new concept for dispensers.” He added: “There will be many businesses, which want to protect their staff and customers without compromising the look and feel of a building. Ours has been designed to be aesthetically pleasing.” Not only that but it has also been designed by the same, world-class team who created The Grenadier, INEOS’ new 4 x 4, which is due to go on sale next year. The man, who helped to bring The Grenadier to life on paper, is Toby Ecuyer, a trained architect and one of Britain’s best super yacht designers. He has helped to design two types of dispenser – one for businesses and a smaller one for the home. The professional unit, which can be customised by a company, comes in three styles – for the table, freestanding or wall mounted. The smaller one, which is available in red, cream, silver or black, is designed to sit on a kitchen worktop or table, or be mounted on a wall by the front door. Swiss engineering firm Gritec will initially manufacture 20,000 dispensers at their site in Grüsch. Both went on sale via INEOS Hygienics’ website just before Christmas, along with the easy-to-fit refill cartridges. “We got immediate interest from the public,” said Oli. For Oli, who joined INEOS’ new global healthcare business earlier this year, it’s an exciting time. “INEOS has always been in the background making products that underpin society,” he said. “But now it is doing something in the foreground to get the world back on its feet.” On Friday October 23 at 8.45pm UK time, INEOS made history – by running its first-ever TV advertising campaign to showcase its hospital-grade hand sanitisers. The advert made its debut during Coronation Street, a long-running and popular British soap. George Ratcliffe, Chief Operating Officer of INEOS Hygienics, described it as an important milestone in the young company’s life. “Our products were used by hospitals at the height of the pandemic and our elite sports teams are now using them,” he said. “This was our chance to show the public that, despite being a new entrant into the market, we are a trusted alternative.” The adverts appeared to have worked.“Our weekly sales increased by over 40% after they were shown,” said George. INEOS founded the global healthcare business INEOS Hygienics in July, but Oli said building the dispenser arm of the business, and getting the product to market so quickly, had been an amazing team effort. “We have been able to call on the project management, commercial and engineering expertise across the company and people have risen to the challenge in very tough times,” he said. The business, he said, had been built the long-term and a new era where the importance of hand sanitiser has never been more critical. “Although we have seen an increase in the use of sanitisers in 2020, we believe there will be a lasting impact,” he said. “People’s attitudes have changed. Everyone now knows why it is so important to keep their hands clean to stop getting ill.” www.ineoshygienics.com Tottenham teams up with INEOS Tottenham Hotspur Football Club has teamed up with INEOS Hygienics to keep its players, staff and fans safe. The Premier League football club ordered hundreds of INEOS’ new touchless hand sanitiser dispensers just days after the Hygienics business launched the range to help maintain high levels of hygiene at the ground. “It’s been fantastic to see the dispensers rolling off the production line,” said George Ratcliffe, COO of INEOS Hygienics.  

7 min read

Perfect partners

INEOS has partnered with yet another company that will help it to reduce plastic waste – and give a more environmentally-conscious public more of what it wants. Working together, INEOS Olefins & Polymers and Saica Natur have managed to create high performance flexible packaging, made from more than 60% of recycled low-density polyethylene and linear low-density polyethylene. Rob Ingram, CEO INEOS O&P North Europe, said to do it, significant technical barriers had been overcome on both sides. “Saica are experts in recycling postconsumer plastic film,” he said. “And we have the polymer science expertise to improve the quality, specification, and performance of the finished product.” The new packaging grade polymers, which can be used to make flexible pouches for detergent among other things, has now been added to INEOS’ new range of plastics, which was hailed as ground-breaking when it was launched in October 2019. “We don’t like to make a big fuss until we know we have something to show,” David Kirkwood, Polymer Business Manager, told INCH at the time. The Recycl-IN range was launched with high density polyethylene and polypropylene grades containing up to 50% of recycled waste plastic. The range has now expanded to include low density polyethylene and linear low density, and now contains up to 60% of recycled waste plastic. The development and expansion of the Recycl-IN range is important step in increasing resource efficiency and helps to show consumers that plastics are a valuable resource that should be brought back to life, not just used once and thrown away. “Using waste plastics as a raw material for our products helps to reduce the use of new gas and oil resources,” said Rob. INEOS O&P’s decision to form a partnership with Saica, a leading Spanish waste management company, means that it will now have a reliable supply of recycled product, which can be combined with high performance polymers produced at INEOS’ own sites to make polymer grades that can make flexible packaging that is as good as the original. “This is an example of commitment towards achieving a long-term sustainable growth,” said Victor Sanz, General of Saica Natur. “It shows we are moving towards a circular economy model through the use of resources in a more sustainable and efficient way.”  In 2019 – to help launch this new range of hybrid plastics – INEOS signed long-term agreements with a number of recycling companies including Viridor, the UK’s largest plastics recycling and reprocessing plant. The new facility in Avonmouth, near Bristol, will be powered by Viridor’s £252m energy recovery plant which puts non-recyclable waste to work to produce electricity and heat. “Partnerships, such as the one with INEOS, are crucial to the transition to the circular economy, where every product is comprised of a majority of recycled plastics,” said Keith Trower, managing director of Viridor Resource Management. In 2019 the company’s recycling index, which tracks public attitudes to recycling, found that nine in 10 of those polled believe existing plastic should be used again. “The message from the public could not be clearer when it comes to recycling and putting recycled content back into the economy,” said Viridor managing director Phil Piddington. “Where others see waste, we see resource.” INEOS Olefins & Polymers have partnered with leading waste management company Saica Natur in a supply agreement for recycled LDPE and LLDPE. The long-term agreement will help INEOS to serve the growing demand for increased levels of recycled product in sustainable, virgin quality flexible packaging. The partnership can create high performance flexible packaging, made from more than 60% recycled plastic Saica Natur are a leading Spanish waste management company and are experts in recycling post-consumer plastic film This recycled material will be added to the RECYCL-IN range and can be used to make flexible pouches for detergent, personal care products among other things

7 min read