Ineos to Halt UK Investment, Redirecting About £3bn to the United States
Chemicals and energy group says unstable fiscal regime and higher taxes on North Sea producers have forced it to stop investing in Britain and pursue projects in the US.
Ineos, one of the world’s largest chemicals and energy groups, said it has stopped investing in the UK and will shift future investment to the United States, signalling a major vote of no confidence in Britain’s fiscal and energy policy. The company said it plans to commit roughly £3 billion to US projects after concluding it cannot invest in the UK with certainty.
Brian Gilvary, chief executive of Ineos’s energy division, told The Telegraph that the firm has "stopped investing in Britain" and that "there's no question" future investment will not be in the UK. He said the company could not be sure what future tax rates would be and described the UK as "one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world from a perspective of natural resources and energy."
The move follows a series of recent policy changes that have increased the tax burden on North Sea oil and gas producers. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband raised the supplemental tax on North Sea producers' earnings from 75% to 78%, and windfall levies introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine have been extended until the end of the decade. Ineos and its leadership have repeatedly criticised those measures.
Ineos said higher carbon and fiscal costs have already affected its UK operations. Earlier this year the company closed the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland after about a century of operation, a decision that resulted in the loss of more than 400 jobs. Ineos also operates assets including the Breagh gas field, the Clipper South rig in the North Sea and the Forties Pipeline System, which carries a significant share of the UK’s oil to shore.
Company executives and Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is an investor in Manchester United, have warned that higher taxes and regulatory costs threaten domestic energy production and industrial competitiveness. In April, Ratcliffe said policies he described as squeezing North Sea reserves would increase the risk of falling domestic gas production and the decommissioning of critical infrastructure.
The government framed the windfall and carbon measures as responses to elevated global energy prices and as part of a wider strategy to meet climate targets. Regulator Ofgem has said that "policy costs" have contributed to the energy price cap rising faster than industry forecasts, a development that regulators and ministers have linked to a mix of international market pressures and domestic policy decisions.
The shift by Ineos drew criticism from opposition politicians. Conservative energy spokesman Claire Coutinho said the company was right to highlight the impact of high energy prices and carbon taxes on British industry and called on ministers to prioritise growth and jobs, including by reconsidering the ban on new oil and gas licences.
Ineos’s announcement increases pressure on ministers to balance fiscal receipts and industrial policy while pursuing climate goals. The company’s stated reallocation of capital to the US will be watched closely by industry groups, energy investors and policymakers concerned about the future of North Sea production, domestic supply security and the health of UK manufacturing.
Analysts say investment decisions in energy are shaped by a combination of global market conditions, national fiscal regimes and longer-term regulatory expectations. Ineos’s public decision to redirect spending to the United States underlines how companies assess those factors when choosing where to deploy large-scale industrial capital. The company did not disclose a precise timetable for the redirected investments or the specific US projects that will receive the initial £3 billion commitment.
Ineos and government spokespeople did not immediately provide additional comment beyond the statements published by the company and in national media interviews.