Chemicals company Ineos has started production at a plant that will make a million bottles of hand sanitiser a month after beating its target to build a new plant to make the vital gel within 10 days.
The firm, which is already making hand sanitiser at its Scotland and Germany plants, started out on the project to create the new facility at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, two weeks ago, despite similar projects usually taking six months or more.
Ineos unveiled its plans to counter hand-to-mouth contamination, which is one of the main ways that the Coronavirus infects people, in response to the critical shortage of hand sanitisers across the Ƶ and Europe.
With the firm already making pure ethanol, one of the raw materials needed for hand sanitiser, at its Grangemouth plant, Ineos created the plan to make the gel itself.
The plant is now up and running, having started producing the sanitiser at the weekend, running three shifts around the clock in a spare building at its existing site in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.
It said it is focusing on meeting the needs of front line medical and care services as well as making “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers available for people’s personal use.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of Ineos, said: “Now that production of the Ineos hand sanitiser has started, we are working on the fastest way to get them to where they need to be.
“I am confident that within a few days our sanitiser will start to be seen in hospitals, surgeries and people’s homes.”
The firm, a leading European producer of the two key raw materials needed for sanitisers in isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol, is already running its plants flat out and has been diverting more of the product to essential medical use, including in the new factories.
It said it takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously and that its products are essential to the production of essential healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing.
Ineos products purify the public’s drinking water and it also produces raw materials for soap, phenol for aspirin and paracetamol, and its acetonitrile is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.
Sir Jim added: “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.”
