Ineos closes UK synthetic ethanol plant

Ineos has closed its synthetic ethanol plant in Grangemouth, Scotland. The plant, which had 180,000 metric tons per year of capacity, was one of just two in Europe converting ethylene into the alcohol. Ineos blames the closure on the UK’s high energy prices and carbon taxes. “De-industrializing Britain achieves nothing for the environment. It merely shifts production and emissions elsewhere,” Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe says in a statement.