Peter Loggenburg, SSI Chuseis current president, agreed to join Trecora as part of the acquisition and will retain his role as president of the subsidiary, which has about 75 employees and posted more than $23 million in sales in 2013. Sugar Land, Texas-based Trecora anticipates rebranding SSI Chusei, including a name change, in the coming months.

We wanted to expand our footprint in the petrochemical business, Trecora CEO Nick Carter said in a conference call Oct. 2. We felt like Southampton, our petrochemical company, has a fairly narrow range of products and narrow range of customers.

Carter said SSI Chusseis plant in Houston, located within two miles of the Houston ship channel, offers logistical advantages and room for growth. The plant is sitting on 22 acres, using about 12 acres, so it has got basically about 10 acres of available land for planned expansion, he said.

He noted revenue growth at the Chusei facility has been stymied a bit by capacity constraints. Were looking at a project to expand their custom processing capability, Carter said. The wax production that they do is also running at about a 50 percent capability rate, so theyve got some availability there also, so we think we can get some revenue growth going forward. According to Trecora’s presentation on the acquisition, SSI Chusei has production capabilities beyond 40 million pounds per year.

Simon Upfill-Brown, president of Trecora subsidiary South Hampton Resources, said in the conference call that SSI Chusseis two main business segments are specialty waxes and custom processing. The specialty wax division manufactures boutique designer waxes that are used for specific applications and adjusted to expected parameters. Theyre the largest byproduct wax processor in the country, he noted. They start with a very low margin feedstock and turn it into products of very high value.

Upfill-Brown said that while SSI Chusei primarily produces polyethylene waxes and derivatives, it also produces some oxidized and polypropylene waxes, and wax blends. The waxes are often used in lubrication, he noted, saying an example is the use of wax to lubricate PVC piping manufactured through extrusion.

SSI Chusei owner Arthur Steier stated, We believe that we built SSI Chusei into a very solid specialty chemical manufacturer, and further believe that Trecora will be very successful in taking it to the next level.

According to SSI Chuseis web site, Chusei (U.S.A.) was established as a Texas corporation in Houston in 1989, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Okayama, Japan-based Chusei Oil Co. Ltd. The subsidiarys early objectives included expanding sales of Chuseis low molecular weight polyethylene waxes into the North American market and expanding and identifying business opportunities to support construction of a manufacturing facility in the United States. Chusei (U.S.A.) divided its major business lines into polyethylene waxes and toll manufacturing.

The Pasadena plant was completed in late 1992. In 1999, Chusei expanded its polyethylene wax business through a joint venture called Chusei Waxtech Polymers LLC.

Trecora Resources owns and operates a petrochemical facility located in southeast Texas, just north of Beaumont, which specializes in manufacturing high-purity petrochemical solvents and similar materials.