For centuries, Britain has been self-sufficient in salt – one of the most essential minerals on the planet. From Roman times through the Industrial Revolution, the vast underground halite deposits in Cheshire have supplied not just table salt but the raw material for pharmaceuticals, plastics, water treatment, food processing, explosives, and road gritting. The UK once exported salt across the Empire and produced nearly all its own needs domestically. Now, for the first time in modern history, that era is at risk of ending.
In January 2026, Inovyn (part of Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS group), which produces around 50% of Britain’s salt at its Runcorn plant in Cheshire, warned Sky News that it may have to shut down the facility without urgent government intervention. The other major producer, Tata Chemicals Europe’s British Salt operation, would then be left carrying the load – but the country would still become a net importer of salt. Nearly 3 million tonnes are produced annually in the UK, mostly via solution mining (pumping brine from underground ancient seabeds and evaporating it). Losing half that capacity would be a seismic shift.
Why is this happening now – and why is net zero the culprit?
The root causes are sky-high industrial energy costs and the UK’s carbon taxes, both heavily shaped by net zero policies. Salt production is energy-intensive: pumping, evaporating, and processing brine requires substantial electricity and heat. The UK’s push for decarbonisation – including the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), carbon floor prices, and a grid increasingly reliant on intermittent renewables – has driven up electricity prices for heavy industry far beyond those in competitor nations like the US or China.
Carbon taxes hit particularly hard. INEOS has publicly described them as “killing manufacturing,” with one plant alone facing a £15 million bill in a single year. Executives argue that these policies, designed to cut domestic emissions, are accelerating deindustrialisation instead. As one industry leader put it, the more plants close, the lower Britain’s reported carbon emissions become – edging the country closer to its 2050 net zero target on paper, while the actual production (and emissions) simply shifts overseas.
This isn’t isolated. The chemicals sector, of which salt is a cornerstone, has seen output fall 20% in the past three years – a decline unprecedented outside wartime. Eleven major chemicals plants have closed in the last decade. Recent examples include CF Fertilisers’ ammonia plant in Billingham (2023), Tata’s 150-year-old soda ash plant in Lostock (2025), and Inovyn’s own sulphuric acid facility. The infrastructure itself is ageing, much of it dating back to the ICI era of the mid-20th century.
Salt: The invisible foundation of modern life
Few people realise how central salt is. It underpins roughly 90% of pharmaceutical manufacturing. It is used to purify drinking water, produce plastics, make explosives, and process food. Road gritting in winter relies on it. Chlorine and other chemicals derived from salt are the building blocks for countless supply chains. Tom Crotty, INEOS group director of chemicals, warned: “Without a plant like this, we’d have to import… salt is a very corrosive material and that makes imports very, very difficult. And it’s a relatively low-value product. So the cost of the movement dramatically impacts the final price.” The result? Higher costs for UK food, medicines, and manufacturing – making British products less competitive.
Sharon Todd of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) called the situation “slightly crazy”: global chemicals demand is booming (a $6 trillion market), yet the UK is retreating. Steve Elliott, CEO of the Chemicals Industries Association, urged the government to move beyond rhetoric: “Enough of the rhetoric and more urgency please on meaningful energy and carbon policy and funding… Otherwise, we’ll see further deindustrialisation through decarbonisation in 2026, with serious implications for our critical national infrastructure, growth sector supply chains and net zero delivery.”
The bigger picture: Deindustrialisation by design?
Critics, including INEOS founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, argue that net zero policies are creating a paradox. By making energy-intensive industries unviable through taxes and high prices, the UK is offshoring both jobs and emissions to countries with looser environmental rules (and often coal-heavy power). National security is also at stake: domestic production of foundational chemicals supports everything from fertilisers to defence manufacturing.
The government has offered some targeted support – a grant to keep INEOS’s Grangemouth ethylene cracker open in late 2025 – but industry figures call this a “sticking plaster.” Broader reform of energy and carbon policy is needed if the UK wants to decarbonise while retaining industrial capacity, jobs, and supply-chain resilience.
What happens next?
If Inovyn’s Runcorn plant closes, Britain will rely on imports for a mineral that is cheap to produce domestically but expensive and logistically awkward to ship. Communities in Cheshire and the wider chemicals heartlands will lose skilled jobs. Manufacturing costs will rise. And the UK’s claim to be building a “green” economy will ring hollow if it simply exports its industrial base.
Salt may seem humdrum, but losing control of its domestic production would be a stark symbol of a deeper problem: when net zero policy prioritises emissions targets over energy security and industrial survival, the consequences ripple through the entire economy. Whether policymakers choose to intervene – with pragmatic reforms on energy costs and carbon taxes – will determine if Britain’s salt industry survives or becomes another casualty of the net zero transition.
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