Ineos halted production on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, at three chemicals plants in Hull, north-east England, blaming the cost of gas in the United Kingdom, which the company says stands at 12 times the level in the United States and eight times that of China.

Two units at the Saltend complex have already stopped and the third will be shut down in the coming days, according to The Guardian and the Yorkshire Post. The company says around 1,000 employees at Saltend are affected and that a further 3,000 skilled jobs across the Humber region could be hit; no redundancies are planned. The plants produce acetic acid, acetic anhydride and ethyl acetate, and are Europe’s last world-scale acetyls units. UK natural gas prices doubled between July and September and reached their highest level since December 2022, a move the Yorkshire Post links to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran and the disruption of oil and gas supply through the Strait of Hormuz.