Championing UK gas

Chemicals firm Ineos believes the best way to secure its feedstock is to go out and find it. Gary Haywood, chief executive of its shale division, talks to PE

INEOS is expecting to receive its first cargo of American ethane into its Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical plant in September. The Scottish facility has the capacity to produce around 9m litres (57,000 barrels) of oil products a day and around 1m tonnes of petrochemicals per year. But the plant's ethane cracker has been running at less than half its capacity for the past three years, lacking the gas it needs as a feedstock - a victim of the decline of the UK's Continental Shelf. Enter the Marcellus, the huge shale gasfield in the US' northeast. Gas piped through Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook liquefied natural gas terminal on the Delaware river will be received in Scotland. Gary Haywo