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Frack Off, Ineos: UK Doesn’t Want Fracking for Plastics

by Andy Gheorghiu

Amazing! Inspiring! Unifying! Empowering! Hopeful!

These would be the words I would choose if I’d have to describe my impressions about the “Ineos, Fracking and You” speakers tour that took place in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, North England, in February 2018 — a tour that gave me the opportunity to meet and work with fantastic campaigners and activists (Tony Bosworth, Chris Crean, Simon Bowens and Pollyanna Steiner from FoE EWNI, Steve Mason from Frack Free United, Kit Bennet from Frack Free York, Carol Hutchinson and Dave Kesteven from Eckington Against Fracking, Peter Roberts from Frack Free Ryedale, Matthew Trevelyan from Farmers Against Fracking, Eddie Thornton and Leigh Coghill from the Kirby Misperton Protection Camp as well as Bishop Graham Gray and many many more).

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This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Stop Ineos from Fracking the UK

 The petrochemical giant that wants to frack to make plastic is meeting intense local opposition

by Andy Gheorghiu

The secretive chemical company Ineos has been leading the charge to bring the environmentally destructive method of drilling, known as fracking, to the United Kingdom (UK) and mainland Europe. The company’s goal is to produce cheap gas for its own plastics and petrochemical production. But the company is running into massive public opposition.

The first blow for Ineos came last year, when the Scottish Government voted for an indefinite moratorium on fracking – a proper, democratically supported move that has nonetheless prompted Ineos to launch a legal challenge against it.

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Ready, Steady, 2018: What Food & Water Europe Will Fight for in the Coming Year

By Frida Kieninger, David Sánchez and Andy Gheorghiu

In 2017 we worked hard to change things for the better – fighting for sustainable agriculture, public water, better trade agreements, and clean energy solutions. The past year was a tough one seeing U.S. President Trump’s destructive decisions on social, energy and environmental issues and another series of devastating disasters linked to climate change. Nevertheless, now more than ever we are motivated to make 2018 a successful year for our beautiful fragile planet. Can we count on you?

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European Activists Invited to Talk About Opposition to Gas Infrastructure in the European Parliament

If you are around Brussels this month, you are more than welcome to participate in our event on 22 January, bringing the voices of anti-gas infrastructure activists to the European Parliament. The event will take place from 13:30-14:30 in room PHS 01C051.

Why is Gas on the EU-Parliament’s Agenda this Month?

On the following day, Tuesday 23 January, the European Commission will talk to Members of Parliament about a new priority list for gas and electricity projects. Food & Water Europe followed the establishment of this list carefully and heavily criticises it because:

  • It is too focused on fossil fuel (gas) infrastructure to the detriment of renewables.
  • Support for subsidizing gas projects is not in line with the goals laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement.
  • It is marked by conflicts of interest due to heavy industry involvement.
  • It incentivises the misuse of public money for unneeded fossil fuel projects will end up as stranded assets.
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Five Unneeded, Costly, Climate Killing Fossil Fuels Projects

A Journey to the EU ‘Priority Projects’

By Frida Kieninger

On November 24, the European Union Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete presented a list of priority gas infrastructure projects, known as the Projects of Common Interest (PCI). While he claimed proudly that this year’s list shows a shift away from gas, a simple question about the real number of gas projects on the list suggests that this is not true.

In fact, the EU-Commission tried to artificially decrease the number of fossil gas projects with a simple accounting trick, by clustering projects. When counting this year’s list in the same way as the last two PCI lists, it contains even more gas projects than ever before.

A total of over 90 gas infrastructure projects will be on the 2017 PCI list. All of them are costly, unneeded fossil fuel infrastructure, which will curb much-needed investments in clean energy and energy saving measures.

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Meet the European Petrochemical Giant Trying to Profit from the Fracking of Pennsylvania

The Controversial Mariner East 2 Pipeline Would Carry Gas Liquids for Plastics Production Overseas

By Wenonah Hauter

It seems that every week brings more bad news about the construction of Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline. While Pennsylvania communities, water protectors and landowners fight to stop the project, a larger question remains: What is this massive, dangerous pipeline actually for? The one word answer might surprise you: plastics.

The Mariner East 2 won’t carry “natural gas” for heating your house or operating a stove. It will transport highly volatile liquids that will mostly be shipped overseas to be turned into plastics by a giant chemical corporation with a terrible environmental record.

Ineos’s pro-fracking agenda has spawned a citizen movement in Europe, where residents are fighting to prevent the company’s plans to frack the United Kingdom.

In other words, Sunoco and its parent company Energy Transfer Partners are putting Pennsylvania communities at risk—from the immediate negative impacts of fracking in the western parts of the state, to the long-term risks to families living near the 350-mile pipeline—in order to supply a giant corporation making plastic pellets, many of which wind up littering shorelines across Europe.

My organization, Food & Water Watch, has been digging deep into Ineos, the massive chemical conglomerate profiting from the fracked gas liquids out of Pennsylvania. Ineos founder and chairman Jim Ratcliffe amassed his petrochemical empire in short order, thanks to risky bets and highly leveraged takeovers and acquisitions. The Mariner East 2 pipeline represents one more dangerous Ineos “innovation”—it delivers fracked hydrocarbons to the Marcus Hook facility near Philadelphia, where they are loaded onto the company’s “dragon ships” headed to facilities in Scotland and Norway.

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