The silent demise of the British chemical industry

Largely unreported in the MSM the British chemical industry is being bought up from over seas and now some is being shut down.

Vast new chemical complexes in the Middle East are being built ( many designed in the UK ), but not reported.

In the north east at the old ICI Wilton complex the new owners, Dow, of the Ethylene Oxide plant are shutting it down, its the last one in the UK and moving production to Kuwait. (new plant opening soon ) So what I hear you ask - well chemical plants don't exist in isolation. They are fed by other plants and their products are required by other manufacturers.

A plant that uses say, excess steam, that closes may also make the plant that produces the excess steam uneconomic and a domino effect kicks in.

In Wilton and Billingham vast chemical complexes existed, but their British owners have sold or are now more. The Saudi's, Dutch and Germans now operate them, and they are very much biased in terms of production from their how countries.

When I left school I chose to work in the Chemical Industry as it was one of the only manufacturing sectors which was strong. ICI, Shell, BP and others all lead the world. Now ICI is no more and what's left of its plants are owned by various people, Shell is looking at selling its last UK refinery and cutting its workforce by 15% next week and its just a matter of time before BP becomes a US company in fact as it is in business terms already.

How much marketing and media studies is the UK going to have to sell the world to pay for all the things we buy abroad now ( ie nearly everything ) ?

The capture of the imagination of the country by the green suicide lobby even extends to The Institution of Chemical Engineers. In their house magazine the editorial; talks about the lose of this capital intensive bulk chemicals production being inveitable and that the green jobs will come to save us and new high tech plants.

Well the Saudi's & Kuwaitis are building those too, on a price no object basis. They have large populations they need to buy industries for and the money to do it.

And some the country that gave the world the industrial revolution is hollowed out.

There are lots of engineering in this country 40+ who cut their teeth in our chemical industry and the North Sea. Many earn money for this country by consultancy, working for UK engineering contractors and working aboard, but they won't be replaced ( though of course the courses will still run at Universities, but there will be few jobs for their graduates ) and just like the last TV set to be manufactured in the UK - where TV was invented - the capability will pass away into history.

What is it we do that the world wants to keep shipping electronic goods and food to us for again ?

Lets hope those nice people in the middle east never want to impose sanctions on us, because soon we will be reliant on them for more than just crude oil.

Strategic economics and economic warfare against the UK

My occasional holiday with old university friends and their families was good fun ( South Derbyshire may not strike you as an obvious holiday location, but there's plenty to do with your family and we all had as good a time as anywhere we've been. Man in a Shed even had a go on "Rita Queen of Speed" at Alton Towers - 0-100km/hr in 2.2 secs - the queuing up was a terrifying wait, but once it was over I wanted to go straight back again. )

But our conversations turn more to our children's education - despair now reigning of the state education system, one of my friends resigning as a school governor after the school refused to admit it had failed pupils in one year - despite the evidence being right in front o their faces.

And then to economics, or more specifically the chemical industry. Now I know the image of the chemical industry is bad, especially away from the areas that rely on it for employment. But remember the UK was a major player int he Chemical Industry a decade ago. We had our own multinational, ICI, although one that seemed hell bent on commercial suicide. We still have major Engineering contractors in this country, but much of our industry is falling into foreign hands, and some of those hands are arms of foreign states which wish to strip out that industry and move it to their own locations.

Now those state owned companies, who are building massive (and I mean massive) infrastructure in their own countries to produce the chemicals we used to make here are buying key infrastructure here. They are running it for a few years, and now they are closing it down.

That could be economic warfare rather than the free market. Its time people started to tell the difference before its too late and ask themselves how we should conduct trade with parties who have objectives other than profit in mind.