The UK government will provide £350 million for a Critical Chemicals Resilience Fund to further support the country’s ‘strategically important’ chemicals producers. Government officials said that the money will help firms stay competitive, modernise infrastructure, decarbonise and electrify their processes. An additional £120 million of support will be targeted to the ceramics sector.
‘At a time of global uncertainty it’s never been more important to ensure Britain’s resilience and back the industries our country depends on,’ said UK business secretary Peter Kyle. ‘This funding will support thousands of jobs and put business on a secure footing for the long term.’
In recent months the UK government has intervened, or been called on to support, several foundational chemical plants in emergency circumstances. At the end of last year, it committed to a £150 million support package to save the ethylene plant at Grangemouth in Scotland – the last such plant in the UK after ExxonMobil decided to close its site in nearby Mossmorran.
More recently, the Ensus bioethanol plant in Teesside will temporarily reopen thanks to extra government support. This is to help meet the UK’s need for carbon dioxide during shortages prompted by the conflict in the Middle East, since ethanol fermentation produces CO2 as a byproduct. The plant had closed in autumn 2025 after a UK–US trade agreement made imported bioethanol cheaper than UK supplies. At the time, the government rejected a bailout for the bioethanol sector after deciding it was not in the national interest.
The new funding comes in addition to measures aimed at directly reducing industrial energy costs by exempting companies from levies on their energy bills, outlined in the UK industrial strategy last year, expanded to cover around 10,000 manufacturers in April 2026, and due to take effect from April 2027.
The government has said that it will work closely with the chemicals industry to develop the funding support, reduce regulatory costs and ensure ‘policies deliver decarbonisation not deindustrialisation’. Steve Elliot, chief executive of the Chemical Industries Association, welcomed this partnership with industry. ‘Much is needed – both in terms of policy and funding support – to address the industry’s energy, carbon reduction and broader regulatory costs’.
‘The chemicals sector is vital, providing everyday products and as part of the supply chain for many other economic sectors,’ says Jonathan Oxley, who leads work on the energy transition at the Confederation of British Industry and is a trustee of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). He says that the RSC ‘welcomes support for the strategically important chemicals sector and we will work with the government as its plans develop, making the most of opportunities to develop the skills of the workforces of tomorrow’.
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