CSL was formed by a joint venture of individuals with experience in specialty chemical contract manufacturing operations working with acustomer base including major marketing companies in the petrochemical, chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
It has several sister companies, among them specialty chemicals company KMCO; South Coast Terminals, whose services include lube additive packaging; petrochemicals and lube additives handling company Third Coast Terminals; and chemical distillation company KMTEX.
Jeff McFerrin, a director of CSL and formerly with KMCO for 15 years, told Lube Report that, while we dont make the finished products in all cases, well make an additive for making one of their additives. Some of our current customers weve already had a dialogue with. Theyre wanting to shift some production from U.S. over to Asia – and look at some products that sell better in Asia vs. the U.S.
In terms of customers, he said CSL will pursue the additives business, the plastic business and other types of industries. Were in discussions with pretty much all the lube additives guys. Certainly the lube oil additive business has been very good to our companies here in the U.S., and we expect to continue more work.
He said the company began considering the idea of opening a plant overseas in late 2004, when they noticed some plants shutting down in the Gulf Coast area, while others were opening locations in Asia. We explored a number of possible locations within Asia Pacific and decided on Singapore as the base for our Asia Pacific operations because of the excellent existing infrastructure that is available on Jurong Island, availability of skilled personnel, business friendly environment, strong intellectual property protection, geographical location and above all, proximity to our anticipated customers as well as our raw material suppliers, McFerrin said.
The CSL facility will be on a 10 acre site. Construction has begun on phase one, with completion expected by the fourth quarter of this year. The phase one facility will have two reactors of 85 metric ton capacity each and a 115 metric ton batch distillation unit and their associated filtration, blending, extraction and stripping facilities. When fully completed in its final phase, the company will have more than 20 reactors with capacities ranging from 20 metric tons to 200 metric tons.
He explained each reactor is basically a pressurized, stainless steel vessel that takes raw materials and in the presence of a catalyst can make a product. They will be capable of carrying out reactions such as alkoxylation, amine condensation, boration, polymerication, esterification, polyol, quaternization and hydrogenation, as well as high vacuum/high temperature distillations and customized filtrations.
The company aims to provide cost effective customized service with intellectual property protection to clients in Asia Pacific wanting to produce particular products in small quantities, testing new products before full scale productions, product development and short term production capacity. What were trying to do is, with what we all have learned throughout the 30 plus years, lets build an ideal plant, McFerrin said.
We are confident that with the anticipated rapid growth of the chemical industry, especially the specialty chemical sector, in Singapore and the rest of the Asia Pacific region, CSL will be able to fulfill its overall business objective of providing value-added service that will be sought after by our customers, said Jim Clawson, another director of CSL.