INEOS announces plans to build a fourth hand sanitiser plant

• New plant to open within the next ten days in Etain, North East France.
• INEOS also announces that it has delivered on its ten day promise and has started French production of one million bottles of hand sanitiser a month at its Lavera site.
• Hand sanitisers are a critical weapon in the fight against the Coronavirus and remain in short supply across  France and Europe.
• Sister plants are all now in full production in the UK, Germany and France.
• The INEOS Board has had a daily call on the progress of building the plants.
• Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS says, “I am extremely proud of the INEOS team who have already built three production facilities in literally a few days, with a fourth following next week. I believe these hand sanitisers will play a key role in the fight against the Coronavirus and will help protect hospital front line staff who deserve all the help we can give them.”

INEOS, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, has today announced that it is to build a fourth hand sanitiser plant. The plant to be built in Etian will be located to serve the hard hit hospitals in Paris and North Eastern France as well as meet the needs of Belgium.

The company has also announced that it has met its ten-day target to build a hand sanitiser plant in Lavera France and has today started production of 1 million hand sanitisers a month.

Hand to mouth contamination is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people and there is a critical shortage of hand sanitisers across France and the rest of Europe.

INEOS is focusing on meeting the needs of front line medical and care services as well as making “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers available for people’s personal use. These will be produced to World Health Organisation (WHO) specifications.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS says, “Now that production of the INEOS hand sanitiser has started, we are working on the fastest way to get them to where they need to be. I am confident that within a few days our sanitiser will start to be seen in hospitals, surgeries and people’s homes”.

INEOS is the leading European producer of the two key raw materials needed for sanitisers – isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol, producing almost 1 million tonnes. The company is already running these plants flat out and have been diverting more of this product to essential medical use including in the new INEOS factories.

INEOS takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously. Its products are essential to the production of essential healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing. Its products purify the public’s drinking water. It produces raw materials for soap, phenol for aspirin and paracetamol, and its acetonitrile is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.

 Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS adds, “INEOS is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. If we can find other ways to help in the Coronavirus battle, we are absolutely committed to playing our part”

ENDS

FOR INTERVIEWS PLEASE CONTACT:

Christophe Chevalier (INEOS)
christophe.chevalier@petroineos.com
+33 6 89 35 55 21

Nicolas Bernard (OGC Nice)
+33 6 63 54 96 99

Richard Longden (INEOS)
richard.longden@ineos.com
+41 799 626 123

Chris Hall (Mediazoo)
chris.hall@mediazoo.tv 
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Mark Killick (Media Zoo)
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