In 1964, Virginia Chemicals built its first amines plant in Portsmouth. The plant manufactured cyclohexylamine, ethylamines, and butylamines. The plant was expanded in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. A liquid phase plant was added in 1979 and the current No. 4 Amines Plant was added on 1981. The other plants were subsequently closed.
In 1970, Virginia Chemicals built a sodium bisulfate plant in Bucks, Alabama. In 1972, expanding on its sulfur chemicals business it built a sodium hydrosulfite plant using technology acquired from Mitsubishi Chemicals of Japan. In 1978, it began production of sulfur dioxide.
In 1975, a multi-purpose, vapor-phase Amines plant was added to the site. The amines business was expanded in 1982 with the addition of a liquid-phase amines plant. The vapor phase plant can produce a variety of alkyl amines with carbon radicals of C2 to C9. The liquid phase plant is actually a hydrogenation reaction plant that has the capability of producing a variety of amines and conducting other hydrogenation reactions.
January 19, 1981 Virginia Chemicals, Inc. was purchased by Celanese Corporation. The company was held as a wholly-owned subsidiary and the company name was changed to Virginia Chemicals, A Celanese Company. In 1984, Celanese sold the air conditioning and refrigeration division of Virginia Chemicals, headquartered in Dallas, Texas to Lai Berg Holdings. That business became Virginia KMP Corporation. KMP operated independently for many years but was ultimately dissolved into Parker Hannifin Corporation in 2005.
In 1982, a 10/90 joint venture was established at the Bucks plant with UCB of Belgium for the manufacture of tetramethylthiuramdisulfide (TMTD). The product was a fungicide and rubber tire manufacturing chemical. The plant was closed in 1987. UCB held the 90%.
In 1985, a partnership was established with Mitsubishi Chemical Industries at the Bucks plant for the manufacture of isobutlyidenediurea (IBDU). The product was a slow release specialty nitrogen fertilizer for golf courses and garden nurseries. The company IB Nitrogen was a 50/50 joint venture between Celanese and Mitsubishi. The partners sold the plant to NuGro in 1998 which was subsequently acquired by Agrium of Canada. The IB Nitrogen plant was operated by Celanese and later US Amines. The plant was closed in 2009.
In 1987, Celanese was acquired by Hoechst AG of West Germany and merged with American Hoechst, to establish Hoechst Celanese Corporation. The company name Virginia Chemicals was dropped at that time. Hoechst Celanese later sold the Bucks plant sulfur chemicals business to Clariant in 1997. Those plants were closed by Clariant in June 2001.
In 1998, Hoechst Celanese demerged their chemicals business. The new company was called Celanese AG and the division in the USA was called Celanese Corporation. The Bucks plant and the Portsmouth plant ended up as part Celanese Corporation. The Portsmouth plant spent the first year of the new Celanese under the ownership of Clariant which had purchased the Portsmouth site. The Portsmouth amines plant was bought back by Celanese in 1999.
In January 2003, US Amines acquired the Bucks and Portsmouth amines plants from Celanese. The largest portion of the original Portsmouth site was retained by Clariant and subsequently sold to BASF. The BASF facilities at Portsmouth have been closed. US Amines owns about 7 acres of the original 50+ acres owned by Virginia Chemicals in Portmouth. US Amines acquired all of the property at Bucks and subsequently some of the Clariant assets that remained on the Bucks site. US Amines established its headquarters at the Bucks, Alabama site.
In 2008, US Amines Limited acquired African Amines (PTY) Limited from Sasol Chemical Industries and Air Products South Africa (Pty) Limited. African Amines opened in November 1994 as a 50:50 joint venture between Sasol and Dow-Sentrachem. The plant is located in an industrial park in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Products include methylamine, dimethylamine, ethylamine, and isopropylamine.
U. S. Amines Limited is currently comprised of three wholly-owned companies: U. S. Amines (Bucks) LLC, U. S. Amines (Portsmouth) LLC, and African Amines (PTY) Limited. I hope you have enjoyed this walk through our company history that goes back over one hundred years.
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