In a heavy blow for Ineos (London; www.ineos.com), Belgian authorities have suspended the building and environmental permits granted in 2021 and 2022 for the company’s Project One cracker project in Antwerp, according to media reports. The government of the Belgian province of Flanders must now make a new decision on the project within six months. 

Ineos expressed “disappointment” about the decision to Plasteurope.com, with a spokesperson saying the company would review and discuss possible options.

The EUR 3 bn cracker with its expected annual ethylene capacity of 1.45 mn t/y was originally supposed to begin operations as early as 2024, but commissioning was recently postponed until 2026. Now the project, which is to be powered by US shale gas, could be on the brink of cancellation.

The environmental protection group ClientEarth has been fighting the project for several years with 13 other organisations, including Greenpeace. This time, the neighbouring Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Zeeland also lodged separate complaints because, according to CleanEarth, there had been insufficient environmental protection assessments. Among other things, the court is said to have complained that the regional authorities had underestimated the risk of nitrogen emissions in the vicinity of a nature reserve.