THE owner of one of Britain’s last remaining chemical industrial sites has threatened to close it due to surging energy prices, blaming the US war in Iran for putting “another nail in the coffin” of heavy industry in Europe.

The factory in Wilton, Teesside, will be closed if energy prices stay the same for the next three months, its US owner, Peter Huntsman, the chief executive the Huntsman Corporations, said today.

He said: “If today’s economics were to stay in place for the next three months, I would shut down my [British] facility and I’d be importing product from China or the US.

“Four years ago, my lowest-cost aniline in the entire world came from the UK. That’s how recently I was competitive. Right now, this week, it is the most expensive.”

He added: “You’re not seeing this in China, America or the Middle East, surprisingly, where the war is.

“You’re seeing it in the EU and the UK, and they’re being hit the hardest.”

One of the last surviving plants of the former Imperial Chemical Industries, the Teesside site produces aniline, a chemical used across industries including rubber processing, herbicides and polyurethane materials.

Huntsman had already cut nearly 10 per cent of its global workforce last year, amounting to about 500 jobs, the largest share of which was in Europe. It has also closed seven facilities, blaming high energy costs.

It follows the £120 million government bailout of other chemical firm Ineos in December to save the ethylene cracker at Grangemouth, said to be the last of its kind in Britain.

Production output in the British chemical industry has fallen by 60 per cent since 2021, according to the Chemicals Industries Association. At least 25 sites have been closed since then.