Huge New Gas Transporter In Pentland Firth - JS INEOS Insight

5th November 2015

A brand-new specialised ship named the JS INEOS Insight, (22,807 tonnes) which was launched China by Mr Jim Ratcliffe, the boss of the huge international Ineos chemicals firm only last July (2015), made an historic outward-bound maiden transit of the Pentland Firth on Wednesday, 4th November 2015.

The 180 metre long vessel has been built, as the first of a modern fleet of specialised vessels, to bring huge quantities of liquefied gas, produced from Americas vast shale-gas fields, to Europe. It will brought specially to Scotland, where INOES is the owner/operator of the major Grangemouth refinery and petrochemicals site on the upper Firth of Forth.

Mr Ratcliffe, 63, has claimed in the past that shale-gas deliveries from America was essential to secure the future of Scotlands biggest private-sector industrial complex. Proudly emblazoned on the ships side is the slogan Shale Gas for Manufacturing.

Mr Ratcliffe, said to be now one of the richest Britons, is from a working-class background in Manchester where his father was a joiner, who later set up as a manufacturer of laboratory furniture.

The total cost of the new fleet will be in excess of £1 billion; it is expected that those will become regular users of the Firth.

Click here for film of the construction of the ships