Europe’s Chemicals Crisis: Xinjiang, Supply Chains and Human Rights

With plants across Europe under pressure, global overcapacity and allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang raise ethical, economic and strategic challenges for the sector, writes Sam Baker

THE EUROPEAN chemicals sector is facing sustained pressure, with companies citing high energy costs, carbon pricing and weakening demand as plants across the continent close or scale back. But campaigners and researchers argue that global oversupply – particularly from China – is also playing a significant role, raising complex questions about supply chains, competitiveness and human rights.

A chemist’s story

Rahima Mahmut was one of just a handful of students from the Uyghur minority to be selected to study petrochemical engineering at Dalian University of Technology in 1987. At the time, ethnic minority students had no choice over which subject they studied and were segregated from Han Chinese students. For Mahmut’s cohort, a class of around 40 which included 15 Uyghurs, the course was petrochemical engineering. Choice for Uyghurs was also restricted to “selected universities”. Mahmut applied to Dalian “not because I loved petrochemical engineering”, but because she was “more interested in going to the seaside”.

Mahmut, who has lived in the UK since 2000, is now director of the Stop Uyghur Genocide campaign group. She left northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region before authorities began detaining Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities from 2017 onwards in what the Chinese government describes as “re-education” camps. Human rights organisations, UN bodies and investigative journalists have since documented allegations of mass detention, abuse and forced labour in the region. Six governments, including the US, UK and Canada, formally recognise China’s treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

After graduating in 1992, Mahmut returned to Xinjiang. “I took the employment that was available at the time,” she says. She enrolled as an assistant engineer in the analytical chemistry lab at a new ethylene plant in Maytagh, a small industrial hub near the city of Karamay. “Apart from chemistry, there’s nothing,” she adds.

Mahmut recalls that “the discrimination was widespread” and that Uyghur workers were typically assigned lower-status roles than Han Chinese colleagues. Before the plant began operating, she says Uyghur staff were assigned to tree-planting work in harsh conditions. “It was almost like a gulag. I remember there were times when the weather was so cold and we were not allowed to go [home]. I remember looking around and it was all Uyghur people [outside].” When production began, Mahmut was moved from the fields into the lab, taking on translating duties as well as her analytical roles. “I was the one who translated the work manual of the machine that we used to analyse all the content of the oil and the mineral content of all the products.”

Mahmut’s relatively senior role in the ethylene plant’s early days was short-lived. After returning from maternity leave in 1995 she says she was returned to a trainee-level role on lower pay, a treatment she believes was not applied to non-Uyghur colleagues.
In 1996 she left the ethylene plant to become a chemistry and lab skills teacher at a local vocational college, where she also taught evening English classes to Uyghurs.

In 1997, Mahmut returned to her hometown of Ghulja during winter break. On 5 February, security forces opened fire on Uyghur demonstrators in what has become known as the Ghulja incident. Human rights groups estimate that up to 200 people were killed, with further deaths reported in detention. “Ghulja was completely shattered,” Mahmut recalls. “Everyone was thinking one thing: how can we leave?”

She was under increased surveillance when she returned to the classroom. “I could see the situation was intensifying and people like me with my background can be the prime target,” she says.

In 2000, Mahmut secured a bursary to study at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and left China, leaving behind her five-year-old son and husband.

Resources in Xinjiang

The Maytagh ethylene plant has since grown into one of Xinjiang’s largest petrochemical facilities, producing ethylene, propylene, butadiene and aromatics from ethane feedstock, along with butene and MTBE as secondary products.¹

The plant is operated by Dushanzi Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of the China national Petroleum Company (CNPC). It is around 8 km from a maximum-security prison that has been used to detain Uyghurs since at least 2019.² Although Mahmut did not witness forced labour before leaving the country in 2000, she believes evidence from the cotton and critical minerals sectors since 2017 shows “there is no way” chemical plants are not doing the same.

One of the biggest chemicals conglomerates in the province is Xinjiang Zhongtai. In 2023, the US government added Zhongtai to its sanctions list under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), citing research that alleged the company’s involvement in state-sponsored labour transfer programmes. Research by Sheffield Hallam University documented alleged forced labour in the company’s PVC operations, describing Zhongtai as an “avid participant in state-sponsored labor transfer programmes”³ based on public records. Zhongtai has not been found guilty of forced labour in a court of law and denies wrongdoing.

Forced labour is not the only concern. Jim Vallette, president of Materials Research L3C and co-author of the Sheffield Hallam report, notes potential occupational health and safety risks for Uyghur workers. He also points to the concentration of coal-based chemical processes in Xinjiang, which carry higher exposure risks. “During Covid, we saw that [while] chemical plants in eastern China were closed, production only increased in Xinjiang,” he says.

Platform chemicals production in Xinjiang has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by abundant coal reserves and regulatory conditions that differ from other Chinese provinces, according to Vallette. The region ranks fifth in China for “building block” chemical plants – olefins, aromatics, ammonia and methanol – with several near detention or re-education facilities. Xinjiang’s petrochemical sector was initially powered by oil around Karamay and later by coal from the Taklamakan desert, while some plants, such as Sinopec’s facility in Kuqa, are experimenting with lower-carbon methods, producing ammonia and methanol from CO2 and green hydrogen.

The potential use of forced labour is unlikely to have a significant impact on global petrochemical prices, which are driven primarily by feedstock and energy costs. Nonetheless, Xinjiang’s “confluence of cheap coal and a lack of environmental, human rights and labour protections” makes it an attractive location for producing platform chemicals, Vallette says. “You have cheap resources of all types,” including labour.

Europe’s floodgates

The growth of manufacturing across China over the past two decades has contributed to what analysts describe as a global oversupply of chemicals, adding pressure to European plants already struggling with high energy costs and carbon pricing. An Oxford Economics report commissioned by INEOS found that chemicals production declined sharply since 2019 across several European countries: 30% in the UK, 18% in Germany and 12% in France. Meanwhile, imports – particularly from China – have risen steadily.

INEOS warned it might close its BDO plant in Marl, Germany unless the EU introduced anti-dumping measures against competitively priced Chinese imports.⁴ The company has since filed ten anti-dumping cases covering ten intermediate chemicals, including BDO,⁵ widely used in pharmaceuticals. INEOS highlights that the Marl plant’s electric arc furnace method is less carbon-intensive than the coal gasification processes employed in some Chinese facilities, underlining the environmental stakes of shifting production overseas.

UK chemical imports remain largely sourced from Europe, though imports from non-EU countries are rising. For example, UK ammonium sulphate imports from China increased from under £10,000 (US$13,450) in 2017 to £726,000 in 2025.⁶ Carboxylic acids and diols, such as BDO, have shown similar trends.

HM Revenue & Customs data indicate that a range of multinationals import organic chemicals and plastics from China. We approached ten companies that routinely logged chemical imports with HMRC throughout 2025. Of these, Jotun Paints, Dow, BASF, Symrise, Merck and Brenntag were able to confirm to TCE that they had not imported any chemicals originating in Xinjiang into Europe in 2025. INEOS, Univar, AkzoNobel and Eastman did not respond.

Leading BDO producers in Xinjiang include Markor Chemical, owned by Zhongtai, in Korla and Blue Ridge Tunhe, which employs around 3,000 people, 15% of whom the company claim are members of the Chinese Communist Party.⁷ Both companies publicly align with regional development plans, illustrating the intertwined nature of industry, politics and local labour policies.

The accountability gap

Campaigners argue that Europe and the UK should adopt presumptive bans on goods from Xinjiang, similar to US legislation. The EU has passed a forced-labour import ban, though enforcement will require “verifiable evidence” and will not take effect until December 2027. “When you can’t prove you are not using forced labour, that means you are using forced labour,” says Mahmut.

UK regulations, meanwhile, rely on voluntary corporate due diligence, which a parliamentary committee recently described as “inadequate”.⁸

Under the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, companies are obliged to publish a “modern slavery statement” but the law stops short of requiring statements to confirm the company is actively taking measures to reduce forced labour in their supply chains.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told TCE: “No company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chains. We have launched a review into the UK’s approach to responsible business conduct as part of our trade strategy and will continue to speak up on the repression of people in Xinjiang.”

The human cost

Mahmut’s story is a reminder that the global chemicals industry is not abstracted from human lives. Decisions about sourcing, pricing and competitiveness can have profound consequences far beyond Europe’s borders.

For companies with exposure to regions such as Xinjiang, supply-chain oversight is not only a regulatory requirement but an ethical one. “Make sure your supply chain is clean,” Mahmut says. “There is no excuse for not knowing.”

As Europe and the UK grapple with how to maintain industrial competitiveness amid global overcapacity, they also face a parallel test of credibility. Ensuring imports are free from exploitation will require greater transparency, stronger enforcement and a willingness to confront uncomfortable trade-offs.

For the chemicals sector, rigorous due diligence is no longer a box-ticking exercise. It is central to protecting human rights, corporate reputation and the long-term legitimacy of the industry itself.

References

1. Global Energy Monitor: Global Chemicals Inventory: bit.ly/global-chemicals-inventory
2. The Xinjiang Data Project: https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/map/
3. Built on Repression: PVC building materials’ reliance on forced labor and environmental abuses in the Uyghur region https://shura.shu.ac.uk/30387/
4. INEOS warns Europe is putting vital medicines at risk by allowing ‘carbon heavy’ imports from the Far East to wipe out domestic production https://bit.ly/ineos-medicines-warning
5. Europe’s industry drowns as Brussels lets a tidal wave of carbon-heavy imports flood in: https://bit.ly/ineos-industry-drowns
6. https://www.uktradeinfo.com/
7. Blue Ridge Tunhe: www.lanshantunhe.com/en/about/about_us/28.html
8. Joint Committee on Human Rights: Forced Labour in the UK’s Supply Chains: bit.ly/forced-labour-report