As of: 09/22/2021 5:32 p.m.
A US company in Great Britain had stopped producing fertilizers because of the rise in gas prices. Now the government pays compensation – but for gas and food consumers, prices are likely to rise anyway.
The British government is raising money to counteract the CO2 bottleneck in the country. How much London pays the US company CF Industries to restart its fertilizer production in northern England has not been made public. In any case, it is a matter of millions – and the government wants to cover the costs for the next three weeks. After that, the company would have to work economically again itself, they said.
Food and healthcare industries affected
The British Economy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng held crisis talks with the US company after it shut down operations – as a result, carbon dioxide threatened to become scarce for the food industry and healthcare.
Carbon dioxide is a by-product in fertilizer production; the US operator’s two plants supply 60 percent of the CO2 required in Great Britain. Food companies had sounded the alarm that their CO2 stocks would only last about ten days. Thereafter, supply bottlenecks for meat, packaged fresh produce, fizzy drinks and baked goods threatened. CO2 is also needed in the health sector.
Are the British expecting an “uncomfortable winter”?
The reason for the US operator to shut down its plants was the 250 percent increase in gas prices, which made fertilizer production unprofitable. Now CO2 prices are also likely to rise significantly – which the industry is likely to pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices in supermarkets.
Together with the increased gas costs, which also affect households, the expiring Corona short-time working allowance and reduced social benefits, many Britons are concerned about how to get through the winter. The Guardian wrote of an impending “Winter of Discontent,” an uncomfortable winter, borrowed from the name given to the British winter between 1978 and 1979, when strikes for higher wages crippled the country – and ultimately the end of the then incumbent Labor Heralded the government.