Ineos sets out to dominate UK shale gas with $1bn investment

The UK-based company aspires to become largest operator in the industry

Ineos, the UK-based chemicals producer, is planning to invest $1 billion in exploration for shale gas in the UK, saying it wants to become the largest operator in the new industry. The firm has applied for a large number of licences in the government’s 14th onshore licensing round, for which awards are due in early-2015, and plans to use ethane extracted from shale gas as feedstock at its Grangemouth, Scotland, petrochemicals complex. Ineos’s chairman, Jim Ratcliffe, has a dual strategy for avoiding public opposition to drilling and hydraulic fracturing for shale gas. Most of the licences the company is seeking are in Scotland and the north of England, where there is a history of mining and