Global chemicals giant INEOS builds two hand sanitiser plants in Arkansas and Pennsylvania in under 10 days as a response to COVID-19 crisis

• INEOS will give the hand sanitizer free of charge to hospitals across the United States.
• The new facilities are in Jacksonville, near Little Rock Arkansas and Neville Island in Pennsylvania. Each will produce 1 million bottles of hand sanitizers each month, to help with the shortage.
• The Jacksonville factory has made its first deliveries of free sanitizer to Baptist Health-Little Rock and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, in Little Rock. Deliveries to other hospitals and other COVID hotspot states will follow quickly.
• Production from the new plant at Neville Island Pennsylvania will start in early May supplying hospitals across Ohio, New York and New Jersey.
• The two new US plants are part of an international response by INEOS, which has also opened 4 similar facilities in Europe.
• INEOS produces more than 300 different products essential to make drugs, testing kits, ventilators and protective clothing in the fight against the Coronavirus.
• Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS said, “Getting the hand sanitizer into production in just ten days was a huge team effort. We know there is a massive shortage of hand sanitizers across the US. We believe these INEOS sanitizers will play a key part in the fight against the virus, helping protect Hospital front line staff and vulnerable people across the country.”

INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, has today announced that it has built two new hand sanitizer plants in the USA to provide hand sanitizer to hospitals for free.

The facilities will be located in Jacksonville, near Little Rock Arkansas and Neville Island in Pennsylvania. Each site will produce 1 million bottles of hand sanitizer each month, to help with the nationwide shortage. These will be produced according to World Health Organization specifications, specifically designed to kill bacteria and viruses.

Hand to mouth contamination is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people and there is a critical shortage of hand sanitizers across the USA. Supplies to hospitals will be free of charge for the period of the crisis with the public being able to purchase bottles through retailers.

The project brought together the manufacturing and enterprise of INEOS, led by Sir Jim Ratcliffe who has already built hand sanitizer facilities in the UK, Germany and France to supply 4 million bottles across Europe.

Production in Jacksonville started this week and is already producing 3,600 gallons a day. First deliveries have today been made to Baptist Health and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, both in Little Rock. Deliveries to other COVID hotspot states are to follow, to help protect front line staff across the country.  

Production and distribution in Neville Island will be up and running early May providing regional hand sanitizer supply for hospitals across Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and New Jersey.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS adds, “INEOS is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. We will supply a million bottles of hand sanitizer a month from each of our new plants in Arkansas and Pennsylvania with the same again in the UK, France and Germany. If we can find other ways to help in the Coronavirus battle we remain absolutely committed to playing our part.” 

INEOS produces chemicals that go into antibiotics, paracetamol, anti-inflammatories, anti-virals, aspirin and the reagent chemicals that go into testing kits and the plastics going into medical equipment, face masks, ventilators, sterile gloves, eye visors. Our acetonitrile is used in essential pharmaceutical analysis in the procedures necessary to find a vaccine.

The US Department of Homeland Security has described products from INEOS Acrylonitrile as “Critical to ensure National Resilience” in their CV-19 response.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About INEOS

INEOS is one of the world’s largest chemicals companies and the 50th largest business in the world, employing around 22,000 people across 183 sites in 26 countries. It is a privately-owned company with sales in 2018 of $60bn and EBITDA of $7bn. In addition to its growth in petrochemicals, it has acquired oil & gas fields in the UK, Denmark and Norway and is a top 10 company and the biggest private enterprise operating in the North Sea.