Ineos files lawsuit against Belgium over annulment of cracker permit
Chemicals company Ineos has initiated legal proceedings against Belgium over the cancellation of the environmental permit for its planned ethane cracker in the Port of Antwerp in 2023. Construction of the multi-billion-dollar Project One was halted for months as a result and the British company is demanding that Belgium compensate it for the loss, Gazet van Antwerpen reports.
Last week, three subsidiaries of Ineos filed a case with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the World Bank. The company confirmed this to the newspaper following a report from environmental association Bond Beter Leefmilieu.
Ineos applied for and received a new environmental permit in January 2024, but construction of the controversial ethane cracker was delayed by five months. This increased the project's cost, which was already estimated at 3.4 billion euros, by an additional 25 per cent, CEO Jim Ratcliffe said earlier this year.
Ratcliffe had already announced that he would seek compensation from the Flemish government over the delay, which came after the Flemish Council for Permit Disputes annulled the environmental permit in 2023. Flemish minister president Matthias Diependaele (N-VA) formally rejected the claim.
The legal authority of ICSID is established in international trade treaties. The Ineos subsidiaries are invoking the Energy Charter Treaty of 1998, which was created to promote international cooperation, energy security and open energy markets. It contains a legal mechanism allowing a foreign company to directly sue a state before a private arbitration tribunal for political or regulatory decisions deemed harmful to its investments.
Major investment
According to the NGO 11.11.11, the European Commission recommended leaving the treaty several years ago because it could make countries vulnerable to such claims.
Project One is Ineos’s planned chemical factory in the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. It is designed to produce ethylene, a key ingredient in making plastics and is one of the largest industrial investments in Europe in decades.
Environmental groups object to the project in part because it relies on ethane from US shale gas and will produce the raw material for more plastic at a time when governments are trying to reduce emissions and plastic pollution.
#FlandersNewsService | Ineos founder and CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe and prime minister Bart De Wever visit the construction works on Project One, Ineos's new chemical plant in Antwerp, June 2025 © BELGA PHOTO JONAS ROOSENS
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