The last leaded fuel on Earth is still being burned over your head.
Leaded petrol was banned from UK roads in 2000. The science was clear: lead is a neurotoxin at any concentration. There is no safe level of lead in the human body.
But one form of leaded fuel was exempted. 100LL — “100 octane Low Lead” — is still burned by piston-engine aircraft at every general aviation airfield in the country. Each litre contains 0.56 grams of tetraethyl lead. The “low” is relative to fuels banned in the 1970s. By any modern standard, it is not low at all.
The tetraethyl lead in 100LL is manufactured by one company, in one factory, in one country. Innospec Ltd, Ellesmere Port, United Kingdom (Companies House #00344359) — the last manufacturer of TEL on Earth. The UK does not merely permit the use of leaded aviation fuel. It produces it and exports it to the world.
The manufacturer is a convicted criminal enterprise
This is not alleged. It is a matter of legal record.
In March 2010, Innospec Inc. (NASDAQ: IOSP, the US parent company) pleaded guilty to:
- FCPA violations — bribing government officials in Iraq and Indonesia
- Defrauding the United Nations — through the Oil-for-Food Programme
- Violating the US embargo against Cuba — selling nearly $20 million in fuel additives to state-owned Cuban power plants
The purpose of the bribes was specifically to delay those countries’ transition away from leaded fuel — prolonging Innospec’s TEL revenue at the direct cost of public health. The company paid $6.35 million in bribes to generate $176.7 million in revenue from corrupted contracts. In Indonesia alone, Innospec supplied 28,390 tonnes of TEL generating $277 million in revenue. The bribery included a Mercedes for a Pertamina official and “special commissions” paid to Swiss bank accounts.
The global settlement was $40.2 million — coordinated between the US Department of Justice, the SEC, the UK Serious Fraud Office, and the US Treasury.
Four executives were imprisoned in August 2014:
- Dennis Kerrison, former CEO — 4 years
- Paul Jennings, former CEO (successor) — 2 years
- Miltiades Papachristos, Regional Sales Director — 18 months
- David Turner, Sales & Marketing Director — 16 months suspended
This was the UK Serious Fraud Office’s first successful contested overseas corruption trial.
They broke their own phase-out promises — three times
After the criminal convictions, Innospec pledged to stop exporting TEL for motor gasoline:
- Pledged to stop by end of 2012 — broke the promise
- Extended to end of 2013 — broke the promise
- Extended to 2014 — broke the promise
- A Greenpeace/Unearthed investigation found Innospec still exporting TEL in August 2017
In the same year that four of its executives were imprisoned for corruption, Innospec’s Customer Care Manager was named a “2014 Export Champion” by the UK government — for exporting the product those executives went to prison for bribing officials to continue buying.
TEL production generated 52–65% gross profit margins in 2016–2017 — far higher than Innospec’s other products. Since 2020, the company has stopped disclosing TEL revenue separately, burying it within its $701 million Fuel Specialties segment. Shareholders and the public can no longer see how much the company earns from producing the world’s last leaded fuel additive.
The numbers
In the United States, piston-engine aircraft burning 100LL emit approximately 468 tonnes of lead into the atmosphere every year — the single largest remaining source of airborne lead, responsible for up to 70% of all atmospheric lead emissions (EPA, 2017). 5.2 million Americans live within 500 metres of a runway servicing these aircraft. Of these, over 360,000 are children under five. Approximately 600 schools sit within that radius.
In the United Kingdom, general aviation emits approximately 10 tonnes of lead per year across 124 licensed aerodromes. An estimated 370,632 residences sit within 4 kilometres of these airports. There is no active surveillance of child blood lead levels near UK aerodromes. We are not monitoring what we are doing to our children.
The evidence of harm
Children near airports are being poisoned
At Reid-Hillview Airport in California, researchers tested 14,804 blood samples from children aged five and under (Zahran et al., 2023, PNAS Nexus):
- Children within 0.5 miles of the airport had blood lead levels 0.20–0.24 µg/dL higher than children further away
- During peak aircraft traffic, the increase reached 0.72 µg/dL
- Toddlers (12–24 months) showed amplified effects reaching 1.60 µg/dL
- Children downwind were 2.18 times more likely to exceed the clinical action threshold
- At peak exposure, the blood lead increase from avgas exceeded levels measured during the Flint, Michigan water crisis
The causal link was confirmed by a natural experiment: when COVID-19 reduced aircraft traffic by 34–44%, child blood lead levels dropped by 0.23 µg/dL. Remove the planes, remove the lead.
In North Carolina, a study of 125,197 children found blood lead levels 4.4% higher within 500 metres of airports, declining in a dose-response gradient with distance (Miranda et al., 2011, Environmental Health Perspectives).
Lead steals intelligence — permanently
Each microgram per decilitre of blood lead costs approximately 0.5–1 IQ point. The relationship is nonlinear — proportionally worse at lower concentrations, precisely where avgas-exposed children fall (Canfield et al., 2003, New England Journal of Medicine).
Historical leaded petrol exposure stole an estimated 824 million IQ points from over 170 million Americans (Reuben et al., 2022, PNAS). That fuel was banned in 1996. Its aviation counterpart is still being burned today.
The annual cost of IQ loss from leaded avgas in the US alone is estimated at $1.06 billion to $11.6 billion in lost lifetime earnings (Wolfe et al., 2016, Environmental Health Perspectives).
People are dying
Lead from avgas causes measurable excess cardiovascular mortality. Each piston-engine flight operation increases cardiovascular mortality by 0.07% within 1 kilometre. A 10% reduction in operations at single-runway airports would reduce annual cardiovascular deaths among adults aged 65+ by 3% (Hollingsworth & Rudik, 2022).
Globally, lead exposure from all sources caused an estimated 5.5 million adult cardiovascular deaths in 2019 (Larsen et al., 2023, The Lancet Planetary Health).
The alternative already exists
G100UL, an unleaded aviation gasoline, received FAA certification in September 2022. Over one million gallons have been produced. It is a drop-in replacement — no engine modification required. Swift Fuels 100R received its certification in September 2024. The FAA’s own EAGLE initiative targets fleet-wide unleaded fuel by 2030.
There is no longer any technical justification for burning leaded fuel. The only justification remaining is regulatory inertia — and profit. Innospec’s TEL margins of 52–65% make it by far their most profitable product line per pound of revenue.
Who profits from the last leaded fuel on Earth
Innospec Inc. is publicly traded on NASDAQ (ticker: IOSP) with a market capitalisation of approximately $2.15 billion. The company is 96.64% owned by institutional investors.
The three largest shareholders are:
- BlackRock, Inc. — 14.5% ($280 million)
- Vanguard Group — 12.5% ($239 million)
- Allspring Global Investments — 9.7% ($180 million)
These three firms collectively control 36.7% of the company. All three have published commitments to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. All three have stated that environmental risks are investment risks.
The CEO, Patrick S. Williams, has been at the company since 1993 and CEO since 2009. He is compensated $13.22 million per year to lead the world’s sole manufacturer of tetraethyl lead.
The UK’s unique responsibility
Tetraethyl lead was first known to kill workers in 1924. Leaded automotive fuel was banned in the UK in 2000. A certified unleaded aviation replacement has existed since 2022.
And yet in June 2025, the EU REACH Committee voted 26-0 to extend the authorisation of TEL production until April 2032 — seven more years of the last leaded fuel on Earth.
The UK is not just permitting this. Innospec in Ellesmere Port is the sole global manufacturer of tetraethyl lead. Every litre of 100LL burned anywhere in the world contains lead made in Britain. The UK government has unique leverage: a single regulatory action — banning TEL production at Ellesmere Port — would eliminate the global supply of leaded aviation fuel.
No other country can do this. Only the UK.
What needs to happen
Ban the production of tetraethyl lead. A certified alternative exists. The transition period should be zero. Every day of continued production is a day of ongoing harm with no technical justification.
Publish the data. The UK currently has no active surveillance of child blood lead levels near aerodromes. Every airport community deserves to know what is being deposited in their children’s blood. Fund voluntary testing programmes. Make the results public. Let informed communities decide for themselves.
Support affected communities. Remediation of contaminated soil near airports. Long-term health monitoring for exposed children. Transparency about cumulative exposure.
Restore financial transparency. Innospec stopped disclosing TEL revenue separately in 2020. Shareholders, regulators, and the public have a right to know how much is being earned from the production of the world’s last leaded fuel additive.
The gap between knowing lead kills (1924) and actually eliminating the last leaded fuel (still waiting) is over a century. The manufacturer has a criminal conviction for bribing officials to prolong this exact product. Four of its executives went to prison. It broke its own phase-out promises three times. And it is still producing, still profiting, and still exporting — from one factory, in one country, under one government’s jurisdiction.
The question for our government is not whether this is harmful — the science has been settled for a hundred years. The question is: how much longer will the UK remain the country that produces the poison?
For a formal legal-framework analysis of this case, see the CivilVelocity prosecution on Moltbook — “The People v. 100LL: A Prosecution of the Last Leaded Fuel on Earth.”
For the complete evidence base, see our References page. To take action, see Take Action.
Last updated: February 2026.
