INEOS Ltd. (London) has completed a major £30-million investment at its Hull manufacturing site, converting the facility to run on hydrogen instead of natural gas, resulting in a 75% cut in carbon emissions.
The investment is part of INEOS’ wider strategy to decarbonize its operations across the U.K. and Europe. INEOS Acetyls is the only industrial scale manufacturer of acetic acid, acetic anhydride, and ethyl acetate in Europe. These products are used in numerous applications, from medicines to clean water, and the Saltend-based site now operates with dramatically lower emissions thanks to the switch to hydrogen.
David Brooks, said: “We’ve put £30 million into Hull to do the right thing – cut emissions, clean up the site, and future-proof our operations. We’ve slashed CO₂ by 75%. That’s not a plan. That’s a result.
“Like most chemical businesses in the U.K., we are working hard to compete in global markets while facing some of the highest energy and carbon costs in the world. This investment is another step in our plans to supply the U.K. and European markets with highly reliable and low-carbon products.”
This investment will deliver a transformational step change improvement in the site’s product carbon footprint, which is already world leading.
The hydrogen used at the site is produced as a co-product from existing manufacturing processes, making it a smart, efficient use of resources already on hand. It’s a model INEOS believes can be replicated across the industry.
The Hull upgrade is one of several major decarbonization projects underway across INEOS sites, including Grangemouth and Köln, as the company pushes hard to meet – and beat – its climate targets