An Open Letter to the Conservative Party, ahead of Birmingham

By Andrew Newbery, AN67 | September 2026

In April I made the case for Resource Realism: the recognition that a modern industrial nation runs not only on electricity, but on hydrocarbon molecules - the fertilisers, fuels, polymers and chemical feedstocks that keep a country fed, mobile and making things. I set out the Hormuz Dozen, twelve critical hydrocarbon derivatives on which Britain depends and for which we are dangerously exposed to imports.

In May I warned that Britain was closing the front door on its own sovereign resources while paying the bill at the back.

This month the bill arrived.

On Monday the RAC's UK average price for a litre of diesel reached 199.18p - the highest on record, overtaking the 199.09p set in June 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The RAC calls it "new uncharted territory". The average is 56.8p a litre higher than when the Iran war began on 28 February.

Across the Atlantic, the President of the United States - the world's largest diesel exporter - says he is looking "very seriously" at a ban on diesel exports. No decision has been taken, and his Energy Secretary is pursuing voluntary restraint by refiners instead. But the question is now openly on the table in Washington.

In Hull, INEOS has idled all three of its Acetyls plants at Saltend, which it describes as Europe's last remaining world-scale Acetyls units, blaming a European gas price it says is twelve times the US level.

In the South Atlantic, Argentina has announced sanctions against companies developing the Sea Lion oil field off the Falklands, and now international arbitration against the UK, after a US President said he "always reviews every position".

At home, Nick Butler, formerly BP's vice-president for policy and strategy, has warned that fuel rationing cannot be ruled out if the disruption worsens.

And our farmers, in one of the most fuel-intensive seasons of the year, are asking how they can afford to grow the nation's food - and whether they will be able to get the fuel to do it.

None of this was unforeseeable. Much of it was foreseen.

As the Conservative Party gathers in Birmingham on Sunday, I want to set out what has happened, why, and what a party that wishes to govern again should say about it.

1. What Actually Moves Britain

Diesel is not a single molecule. It is a refined blend of hydrocarbons - a middle distillate, drawn from the same part of the barrel as jet fuel, in the same refineries. It is also the fuel that moves Britain: the lorries that stock our supermarkets, the tractors and combines that bring in the harvest, the vans that deliver our medicines, the generators that back up our hospitals, and the trains on every unelectrified line in the country.

No quantity of offshore wind will fuel a 44-tonne articulated lorry this winter. No solar farm will run a combine harvester this October. That is not an argument against renewables (which I am broadly in favour of, as explained below). It is the physical reality I have been describing all year.

In May I warned that jet fuel had no scalable electrical substitute and barely featured in the national energy debate. Diesel is its twin. And we have been closing the plants that make both.

2. How We Got Here: The Front Door Closes

In April I pointed to the string of closures across our industrial base - including refining at Grangemouth, Hull Acetyls, Fife Ethylene and the Wilton Olefins cracker. The pattern has not slowed.

Refining: Britain now depends on imports for a large share of its diesel. On House of Commons Library figures, net imports made up 51% of UK diesel supply in 2024. Government figures show that in 2025 just two countries - the United States and the Netherlands - supplied 58% of our white-diesel imports, meeting around 32% of total UK demand. That is why a debate in Washington about keeping diesel at home matters so much here.

We lost two refineries in 2025. Grangemouth, Scotland's only refinery, stopped processing crude in April 2025 and became an import terminal; its owners cited high maintenance costs, falling demand and competition from larger overseas refineries. Lindsey on the Humber followed in August 2025, after its owner Prax became insolvent and no buyer was found - despite an independent assessment by Wood Mackenzie that the site was viable. Fuels Industry UK estimates the two closures took out around a fifth of UK refining capacity. Four operating refineries remain: Fawley, Humber, Pembroke and Stanlow.

Chemicals: last week INEOS idled all three of its Acetyls plants at Saltend in Hull - the "Hull Acetyls" I flagged in April. According to INEOS, the plants support almost 4,000 skilled jobs and make the raw materials for pharmaceuticals, clothing, cosmetics, detergents, construction materials and military explosives. The company blames European gas prices it puts at twelve times the US level, together with what it calls unsustainable carbon taxes. Sir Jim Ratcliffe's verdict was blunt: "we just cannot compete".

Fertiliser: CF Fertilisers closed its Ince plant in 2022, and after idling ammonia production at Billingham - the UK's largest ammonia plant - in August 2022, it permanently closed that ammonia plant in 2023. CF cited UK gas prices, carbon costs and falling demand from industrial customers. Billingham still makes ammonium nitrate fertiliser, but from imported ammonia. Ammonia and urea are the first two entries in the Hormuz Dozen. We did not stop needing them. We stopped making them.

The explanations differ from site to site, but the recurring themes are the cost of gas - as feedstock as well as fuel - and carbon costs that British producers bear and many importers do not. Closing a British plant does not close the demand it served. On INEOS's own figures, the replacement Acetyls product will come from the US with around twice the carbon footprint, and from China with around eight times. My inference is simple: in cases like these, we are not so much reducing emissions as relocating them - along with the jobs, the skills and our security of supply. Then we buy the products back.

That is the front door closing on our own capability while we pay the bill at the back.

3. America First Means Britain Last in the Queue

President Trump's diesel export ban has not happened, and it may not. His Energy Secretary favours voluntary export curbs; the American Petroleum Institute is lobbying hard against any ban; and the White House says no policy decision has been made.

But the debate itself is the lesson.

Faced with record prices and pressure from America's farm states, the President's instinct was simple: "let's not send out the diesel." Keep the fuel at home.

That is Resource Realism in its rawest form. When supply tightens, even the world's largest diesel exporter thinks first of its own farmers and hauliers. Whether America imposes a formal ban, relies on "voluntary" curbs, or simply outbids others for cargoes, the strategic risk for Britain is the same: a nation that does not refine enough of its own fuel is a nation that may have to queue for it.

We have already had a taste of what thin margins mean. In May, as new sanctions on oil products refined from Russian crude in third countries were phased in, the Government issued a temporary general trade licence allowing imports of diesel and jet fuel derived from Russian crude to continue, to safeguard supply and market stability. It has since set an end date of 1 January 2027. Whatever one thinks of that judgement, the fact that it was judged necessary tells you how little room for manoeuvre we have left.

4. The Falklands: Resource Realism Comes Home

In April I called for the development of our own territorial hydrocarbons "including those overseas", and noted that President Trump had begun openly questioning Britain's position on the Falkland Islands. I said the signal was unmistakable.

Since then the signal has become a siren. Argentina has long disputed sovereignty over the Islands. This month President Milei announced sanctions against companies developing the Sea Lion field, new funding for a naval base in Tierra del Fuego, and, this week, international arbitration against the United Kingdom. Asked by the BBC whether the longstanding US position was under review, President Trump said he always reviews every position.

Sea Lion is not a marginal prospect. An independent evaluation published by Rockhopper in August puts the field's gross proved-plus-probable (2P) reserves at 314 million barrels, and proved-probable-and-possible (3P) at 408 million, with substantial further contingent resources. Rockhopper, working with Israel's Navitas, says it is on track for first oil in the first quarter of 2028. The developers hold licences issued under Falkland Islands jurisdiction and have so far shrugged off Argentina's threats. The question is whether Britain will stand visibly behind them.

This is what Resource Realism looks like when others practise it and we do not. Buenos Aires understands exactly what those barrels are worth. Washington's interest is hardly academic. London, by contrast, too often sounds as though it has not yet made up its mind.

A Conservative Party that means what it says about sovereignty and the Islanders' right to self-determination should say, without equivocation, that resources licensed under Falkland Islands jurisdiction will be developed, defended and - where possible - brought into a British value chain.

5. From Forecourt to Farm Gate: Price Now, Supply Next

For farmers, this is first a crisis of affordability. In the spring the NFU reported members being quoted up to 84% more for red diesel, some only told the price after delivery. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimated in April that, if red diesel stayed at around 117p a litre for the rest of the year, farmers would face at least £337 million a year in extra costs - and more than £1 billion on higher ONS estimates of usage. Road diesel prices have since gone higher still - at harvest, and with farm incomes already under severe strain.

It is also, increasingly, a question of supply. The same spring saw local availability problems for red diesel. There is no physical shortage today. But if disruption is prolonged, availability rather than price could become the binding constraint.

The NFU has rightly called for red diesel to be recognised as "a key foundational input in the domestic food system". I would go further. Farmers pay for hydrocarbons three times over:

• once at the tractor, in diesel;
• again in the fertiliser, since ammonia and urea are made from natural gas;
• and again in freight, because every input arriving at the farm and every crop leaving it travels by diesel lorry.

This is how an energy shock becomes a food shock. The fertiliser warnings from Yara's chief executive that I cited in April were the first act. Diesel is the second. Food price inflation is likely to be the third, and it will fall hardest on the households least able to bear it.

The Treasury concedes the record diesel price "is very worrying" and says the Government has "levers". It has used some: in May it extended the 5p fuel duty cut to 31 December 2026 and cut the red diesel duty rate from 10.18p to 6.48p a litre from 15 June. What happens after December is a matter for the Budget. These are reasonable measures. But tax levers ease the symptom. They do nothing for supply, and they do nothing to rebuild what we have lost.

6. The Rationing Question

There is no physical fuel shortage in Britain today. The question is whether "there is fuel today" is a strategy for December.

The Government has a National Emergency Plan for Fuel: its framework of options, priorities and principles for responding to a major disruption of fuel supply. It already contains tools for severe shortages - schemes to give emergency services priority access at designated filling stations, to direct bulk fuel to critical services and to support key supply chains, and, in the last resort, limits on retail purchases.

What it does not do is tell farmers and hauliers, in advance and in plain terms, where food production and distribution stand in that queue. Nick Butler's warning is that prolonged disruption could eventually make rationing necessary. If that day comes, it should not be the day on which the priorities are explained.

My proposal is clear. Food production and distribution, alongside health and emergency services, should be publicly confirmed as priority users now, so that farmers and hauliers can plan and the public is not provoked into panic buying.

7. To the Conservative Party: Half a Strategy Is Not Enough

In May I credited Kemi Badenoch as one of the few voices in Westminster speaking with clarity on hydrocarbons, when she called out the absurdity of importing fuel refined from Russian crude while voting against new North Sea licences. Her call for Britain to "get drilling" recognises what the Government refuses to: that oil and gas are not a relic but a strategic necessity.

I have consistently called for more UK oil and gas production, in the North Sea and in our overseas territories. I repeat that call today, more urgently than before.

But I also said in May that the Conservatives talk of "balance" without a supply-chain strategy. This month shows why that gap matters.

Drilling without refining, processing and manufacturing does not solve this crisis. North Sea crude is sold into global markets, and Sea Lion's will be too - it will be produced into a floating vessel and shipped by tanker to whoever pays most. Without domestic refining and chemical capacity, Britain can produce more oil and gas and still import its diesel, queue for its jet fuel, buy in its ammonia and watch its chemical plants close. Upstream without midstream and downstream is half a strategy.

So here is what I would like to hear from the platform in Birmingham - a Conservative programme of Resource Realism:

1. Produce more of our own oil and gas - at home and overseas. Resume North Sea licensing, remove the policies that are driving investment away, and give unequivocal backing to the development of Sea Lion and other resources licensed under Falkland Islands jurisdiction.
2. Treat refining, chemicals and fertiliser production as critical national infrastructure. Losing a refinery, a cracker or an ammonia plant should be treated like losing a power station: a security event, not a commercial footnote. Stop further closures and, where viable, restore capacity.
3. Fix the feedstock price. On INEOS's account, Saltend is idle not because it is inefficient but because European gas costs many times what its competitors pay. A Resource Realism government would treat competitive industrial gas - including more domestic supply - as core industrial policy, not an afterthought.
4. End carbon leakage - one way or the other. British refiners and chemical producers pay for their emissions under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme; many of their overseas competitors pay little or nothing. The UK's carbon border mechanism, due to start in January 2027, will charge importers of fertiliser and a handful of other goods for that difference - but not importers of refined fuels or most chemicals. Either extend it to those products, phased in as domestic capacity is rebuilt rather than imposed on top of record pump prices, or relieve British producers of carbon costs their competitors do not bear. Level the playing field; don't tilt it against our own industry.
5. Tie new licensing to a domestic value chain. Link upstream investment to refining and chemical capacity, so British molecules become British diesel, jet fuel, ammonia and polymers - upgrading hydrocarbons from fuel to feedstock, as the UAE and Norway have done.
6. Strengthen strategic stocks of diesel and jet fuel held on British soil, and publish in advance where food production and distribution sit within the existing emergency fuel priorities.
7. Keep building nuclear and renewables - but in step with the system that makes them affordable. Every unit of gas displaced from power generation is a molecule freed for fertiliser, chemicals and industry. But further roll-out of renewables must go hand in hand with three things: decoupling electricity prices from gas prices, so that consumers and industry actually see the benefit of cheaper generation; the roll-out of battery and other storage, so that intermittent output can be relied upon; and the transmission infrastructure to get that power to where it is needed. Build the turbines without these, and we will simply pile constraint payments and system costs onto electricity bills - and high industrial electricity prices would undermine the very re-industrialisation that Resource Realism is meant to deliver. Done in step, this is not a compromise between two tribes. It is the only coherent industrial strategy on offer.*

* This is where I part company with those on the right who treat renewables as the enemy, just as I part company with those on the left who treat hydrocarbons as the enemy. The enemy is dependence. Resource Realism means using every tool to end it.

8. The Choice, Again

To the Conservative Party: you have an opportunity. The Government's Energy Independence Bill was announced in May's King's Speech but has not yet been introduced. Its stated purpose is to "scale-up homegrown renewable energy and protect living standards". Nothing the Government has said about it so far addresses the hydrocarbons on which our food, transport and industry depend. This month has exposed that gap for every household, every haulier, every farm and every chemical worker on the Humber to see.

You can meet it with slogans. Or you can offer what no party has yet offered: a serious plan to rebuild a sovereign hydrocarbon supply chain - from wellhead, in the North Sea and the South Atlantic, to refinery, to chemical plant, to farm gate - alongside the clean power that frees those molecules for their highest use.

We live in a physical world of atoms, not a political world of slogans. Diesel does not come from a policy announcement. Fertiliser does not come from a price cap. And a nation that cannot refine enough of its own fuel, make its own ammonia, or stand behind its own resources cannot call itself energy independent, whatever the title of the Bill.

In April I asked Britain's politicians to make a choice. This winter, events may make it for them.

What's your choice?

Andrew Newbery | AN67 | www.an67.co.uk

Previous articles: "The Electron Delusion & Resource Realism" (April 2026); "Closing the Front Door on Sovereign Resources, While Paying the Bill at the Back" (May 2026).