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INEOS to build new hand sanitiser plants
INEOS has announced plans to produce 1 million hand sanitisers per month to help with the European shortage. These will be specifically designed to kill bacteria and viruses and produced according to World Health Organisation specifications.
INEOS is Europe’s largest producer of the two key raw materials needed for hospital grade hand sanitisers – isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol. The company is already running its existing sites in Scotland and northern Germany flat out and has been increasingly diverting more of these core ingredients to essential medical use.
To assist with the Coronavirus battle, it will now build two new factories in Middlesbrough and Germany within the next 10 days, aimed at producing 1 million bottles of hand sanitiser per month.
INEOS has announced it will build new plants in Middlesbrough and Germany to manufacture 1 million bottles of hand sanitiser per month / Picture: INEOS
INEOS intends to concentrate on meeting the needs of front line medical and care services with standard bottle sanitisers, as well as making the increasingly popular “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers available for personal use across the UK and Europe. Supplies to NHS hospitals will be free of charge for the period of the crisis, with the public being able to purchase bottles through retail outlets.
INEOS takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously, its raw materials are essential to the production of key healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing. Its products purify the public drinking water. It produces raw materials for soap, acetone for aspirin and paracetamol, and its phenol is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of INEOS, said: “It is becoming increasingly clear that hand to mouth infection is a significant cause of Coronavirus contagion and INEOS is Europe’s largest manufacturer of the core ingredient of hand sanitiser. We will build two factories in the UK and Germany in 10 days to produce very substantial supplies.
“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.”