In a wave of restructuring La Seda de Barcelona has put its chemical plant business Artenius UK into administration.
Over half the 242 staff at the Teesside PET (polyethylene terephthalate) producer have lost their jobs as part of the parent company's five-year plan of restructuring to focus on PET products and divest its material production operations.
Rising energy costs at the Artenius site have brought about substantial losses for the business. La Seda has already shut down another division.
The administrators at Deloitte aim to sell Artenius as a going concern to protect the retained 105 employees, and effectively over 1,000 other jobs in its supply chain.
La Seda's restructuring plans include the closure of five other non-core sites in Europe including Italy and Spain, with a total value of EUR 250-320m.
It recently recorded annual losses of £564m; it also has £749m of debt.
