Third Quarter Produces the Highest Number of Grassroot Chemical Plant Start-Ups of the Year

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Even with the economy in a state of uncertainty, the Chemical Processing Industry saw 10 grassroot plants start up during the third quarter in the United States. This is twice as many start-ups compared with the first and second quarters, with only five grassroot plants each. In 2007, only four plants went into operation in the third quarter.

The largest plant in terms of employees and total investment value (TIV) that launched production during the third quarter is a Johns Manville Corporation (Denver, Colorado) facility in Scottsboro, Alabama. Johns Manville renovated an existing building and installed a new process line, including equipment with a TIV of $30 million. This 50-employee thermoplastic polyolefins plant began operation in July 2008.

Renewable Carbon Technologies (Mobile, Alabama) also put a plant into operation in July. The company has jumped on the "go green" bandwagon and renovated an existing infrastructure to house a pilot plant that will convert waste tires to carbon black. If the market improves, the plant could have a more substantial presence. For now it will remain as only a pilot plant.

Even though the number of plants that began operation during the third quarter was high compared with previous quarters and years, each had a fairly low employee count, with fewer than 50 people each, and two plants having fewer than 10. Together, all 10 plants created 224 new jobs.

The United States had grassroot plants start manufacturing throughout the nation with almost all of the 10 located in the Southeast, Southwest, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic market regions. Canada, similar to last year during the same time period, had no grassroot plants start production.

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