Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s chemicals empire Ineos has hit back at claims it is abusing its position in the North Sea by hiking tariffs on a key pipeline. Ineos has been accused by US rival Apache of wanting to double the price Apache pays to transport oil through Ineos’s Forties pipeline system (FPS) from the North Sea to the UK. In its defence filed at the High Court, Ineos said it was acting reasonably given Apache wanted to send far more oil than it had been doing but was allegedly refusing to pay a higher price that would help Ineos invest in the network. Apache has been paying a rate of £1.20 per barrel for some of its oil under an agreement with former pipeline owners BP, but wanted Ineos to revert to a 60p rate also previously agreed with BP. The standard tariff is £1. Ineos said it was “entitled to consider whether the original tariff remains fair, reasonable and appropriate in light of Apache’s new requirements [...] Accommodating the demand of users to transport liquids in the FPS until at least 2040 will require significant investment in the system”. Ineos plans to spend around £500m between 2019 and 2023 to improve the system, including upgrading pipes and building waste treatment plants. It bought the 235-mile FPS in 2017 from BP for £200m. A strategic asset, it transports about 40pc of oil and gas from the UK sector of the North Sea to the mainland and feeds into Ineos’s Grangemouth refinery. Despite its importance, prices on the FPS are not regulated, although the Oil and Gas Authority has some oversight and producers have on occasion appealed to the Government to become involved in tariff disputes. As well as owning the pipeline, Ineos has also become one of the North Sea’s largest producers since buying gas fields from Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s investment fund LetterOne in 2015, for an estimated £500m. Ineos then bought Dong Energy’s North Sea oil and gas wells for around £800m in 2017. Ineos is one of the world’s largest private companies, with sales of £46bn and 20,000 employees. The dispute in the High Court continues.