Chemical industry in the United Kingdom

Weston Point chemical works, off the M56, near Runcorn and the River Weaver and the Weaver Viaduct

Sir William Henry Perkin FRS discovered the first synthetic dye mauveine in 1856, produced from aniline, having tried to synthesise quinine at his home on Cable Street in east London. Perkin's work, alone, led the way to the British chemical industry.

21% of the UK's chemical industry is in North West England, notably around Runcorn and Widnes. The chemical industry is 6.8% of UK manufacturing; around 85% of the UK chemical industry is in England.

It employs 500,000, including 350,000 indirectly.

It accounts for around 20% of the UK's research and development.

Regulation of the UK chemical industry is largely under the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals legislation (REACH).

Teesside and Cheshire are areas with an established chemical industry. Significant chemical plants in the UK include:

Grangemouth chamicals plant (former BP, now Ineos), seen in July 2007

North Tees Works

P&G's London Plant

Stallingborough Plant

• Battery Works at Stallingborough in North East Lincolnshire, built by Taylor Woodrow Construction in 1950 for Laporte Industries
• Billingham Manufacturing Plant, former ICI plant that makes nitrate fertiliser[2]
• Ineos Grangemouth chemicals plant, the propylene plant began in 1949, being opened at Grangemouth, Stirlingshire in May 1951[3] for British Petroleum Chemicals, which had been formed jointly between The Distillers Company and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (known as BP from 1954) in 1948. It would later have a crude oil feed from the Forties Oil Field
• INEOS Nitriles (former BASF before 2008) at Seal Sands is Europe's largest producer of acetonitrile; it was built by Monsanto in the early 1970s
• International Paint in Heworth, near Gateshead, east of Felling, make paint for corrosive environments
• North Tees Works, former ICI near Seal Sands, east of Billingham in Stockton. Announced in June 1964, to make cyclohexane and aromatics. Made 400,000 tonnes a year, to be the biggest aromatics plant in Europe, opened 1966, built by Procon[4] By 1970, would be the biggest aromatics plant in the world, when expanded south of the Tees, with a pipeline connecting the two sites. ICI jointly operated two neighbouring oil refineries. Shell had a refinery at Teesport
• P&G London Plant, at West Thurrock; it makes Ariel, Bold, Fairy and Daz
• Seal Sands, run by Lennig Chemicals, the site was built in 1972, later owned by Rohm & Haas, for making acrylate monomer
• Stallingborough Plant, owned by Tronox (Millennium Chemicals until 2007, then Cristal Pigment until 2019); it has been running since 1953 when owned by Laporte
• William Blythe in Church, Lancashire near Accrington
• Wilton International, built by ICI; it is 4000 acres and an olefine site
• Winnington Works, owned by Tata Chemicals Europe previously ICI, at Anderton with Marbury in Cheshire on the River Weaver; it was built in 1874, sold by ICI in 1991; it makes sodium bicarbonate

Former chemical plants

See also: Industry of the South Humber Bank

BP Baglan Bay Works, seen in September 1973

Unilever Warrington, seen in October 2008

• Baglan Bay Works, built similar to the Grangemouth plant for British Hydrocarbon Chemicals (from 1956) by George Wimpey,[5] from 1961 between Port Talbot and Neath in south Wales, it had a light distillate feed from the nearby Llandarcy Oil Refinery, with a steam cracker.[6] British Hydrocarbon Chemicals became BP Chemicals in 1967. It was demolished in 2003.
• Elementis chromium plant at Urlay Nook, near Eaglescliffe; it closed in June 2009
• Four Ashes Chemical Plant, Schenectady Europe (SI Group, former Laporte before 1999) off the A449 in Four Ashes, Staffordshire; it was demolished in 2007
• Grimsby Works, built for Courtaulds
• Hickson & Welch in Castleford; it suffered an explosion in 1992
• Rio Tinto Zinc smelter at Avonmouth, the National Smelting Company, where the Imperial Smelting Process was developed in the 1950s, in the 1960s it was the largest zinc blast furnace in the world
• Lennig Chemicals opened its Tyneside Works at Jarrow in 1960, which was bought by Rohm and Haas in the 1970s, and bought by Dow Chemicals in 2009, and closed in 2015
• Unilever Warrington made Persil and Surf; it closed on Thursday 15 October 2020, near Warrington Bank Quay railway station
• William Blythe chemical Works at Hapton, Lancashire, next to the M65, in the Borough of Burnley

Significant chemical companies in the UK have been:

• Fisons, a significant East of England fertiliser company, bought in 1995
• Ineos, it took over many production sites of ICI
• Unilever, with a main detergent site in Warrington and home care manufacture and research on the Wirral

Relevant organisations related to the UK chemical industry are the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), the Chemical Industries Association, and the Society of Chemical Industry. The chemical industry in Europe is represented by the European Chemical Industry Council or CEFIC.

• Energy in the United Kingdom
• Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom

• Chemical Industries Association (CIA)