The American owner of one of Britain\u2019s last major chemicals plants has said he will close the site if energy prices remain at their current levels for the next three months.<\/p>\n
Peter Huntsman, whose family built Huntsman Corporation into a global chemicals empire, said the recent jump in gas prices<\/a> fuelled by the Iran conflict was \u201canother nail in the coffin\u201d for European heavy industry.<\/p>\n \u201cIf today\u2019s economics were to stay in place for the next three months, I would shut down my [UK] facility and I\u2019d be importing product from China or the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The factory in Wilton, on Teesside, employs about 80 people and makes aniline, a chemical used in everything from car seats to aircraft components. It is one of the last surviving plants of the former Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI)<\/a>, Britain\u2019s largest manufacturer for much of the 20th century.<\/p>\n \u201cFour years ago, my lowest cost aniline in the entire world came from the UK. That\u2019s how recently I was competitive,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now, this week, it is the most expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas-based Huntsman Corporation was founded by Peter\u2019s father, Jon<\/a>, a Mormon from Idaho who died in 2018. He started out in packaging, developing the now ubiquitous clamshell burger carton and selling it to McDonald\u2019s for its Big Macs in 1974, then pivoted into chemicals over the following decades.<\/p>\n Peter became chief executive of the family business in 2000, spearheading the acquisition of ICI\u2019s industrial chemicals arm for \u00a31.7bn the year before.<\/p>\n His elder brother, Jon Jr<\/a>, is a Republican politician who served in every US administration from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump\u2019s first term. He was Trump\u2019s ambassador to Russia<\/a> and Barack Obama\u2019s ambassador to China.<\/p>\n Huntsman Corporation has plants across the US, Europe, south-east Asia and the Middle East \u2013 but unlike its American operations, its UK and European sites are acutely exposed to international gas markets<\/a>, where prices have surged to their highest point since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not seeing this in China, America or the Middle East, surprisingly, where the war is,\u201d said Huntsman. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing it in the EU and the UK, and they\u2019re being hit the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n The multinational had already cut nearly 10% of its global workforce last year \u2013 about 500 jobs with the largest share in Europe \u2013 and closed seven facilities, citing high energy costs.<\/p>\n Huntsman\u2019s warnings echo those of fellow chemicals magnate Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos group received a \u00a3120m government bailout<\/a> in December to save its ethylene cracker at Grangemouth, the last plant of its kind in the UK.<\/p>\n