Monaco resident and chemical-industry magnate Sir Jim Ratcliffe is once again making headlines, this time by halting all new Ineos Energy investment in the United Kingdom and diverting around £3 billion to the United States…
The move underscores how the billionaire, who also owns Manchester United and OGC Nice, increasingly runs his global empire from the Principality while seeking more predictable jurisdictions for his capital.
According to Brian Gilvary, chairman of Ineos Energy, Britain has become “one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world” for natural resources and energy. At the centre of the dispute is the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas profits, first set at 75 per cent under the Conservatives and raised to 78 per cent by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Combined with industrial energy prices that have surged by roughly 75 per cent since 2021, the tax has made Ineos’s UK operations unviable. The looming closure of the century-old Grangemouth refinery in Scotland is a powerful symbol of that retreat.
By contrast, the company hails the United States as a model of consistency. “The USA understands the importance of domestic supplies and how you can drive economic growth off the back of it,” Gilvary told British media. While America has gone from importing to exporting energy, the UK’s North Sea production continues to dwindle.
Yet Ratcliffe is not abandoning Europe entirely. In Antwerp, Ineos is pressing ahead with Project ONE, a €4 billion petrochemical complex now 70 per cent complete and employing 2,500 people — described by Ratcliffe as a lone vote of confidence in a continent “sleepwalking into industrial decline.” From his Monaco base, the industrialist appears to be recalibrating his portfolio around regulatory stability, with the Principality providing a neutral and strategic hub for his next moves.
