As Ineos Chlor seeks to become a prominent North American supplier of chlorinated paraffins, it has allied with two chemical distributors freed up by the merger that precipitated that foray.
Sea-Land Chemical Co., of Westlake, Ohio, announced last week that it has reached an agreement to market Ineos chlorinated paraffins to blenders of metalworking fluids and related markets. Ineos said this week that it has also contracted Tri-iso Inc., of Claremont, Calif., to carry its products on the West Coast.
Sea-Land and Tri-iso both formerly distributed chlorinated paraffins for Ferro Corp.s Keil Chemical Division but lost those accounts after Keil was purchased by Dover Chemical Corp. in July. That merger united the two biggest North American producers of chlorinated paraffins – additives used to provide extreme pressure protection in cutting fluids. Ineos, which is based in Runcorn, U.K., took that consolidation of supply as an invitation to ramp up what had been a small presence in the region.
Weve encountered a frenzy of interest without even doing too much to actively seek out customers, said Lou Gatti, commercial manager for Ineos Chlor Americas, of Wilmington, Del. Now weve got distributors lined up and were going to sit back and see how things develop.
Ineos is basing its venture into North America on an assumption that chlorinated paraffin users will be loathe to depend on a single supplier – or a single plant. Together, Dover and Keil supplied nearly all of the demand in the North American metalworking fluid market. Keil produced chlorinated paraffins in Hammond, Ind., but Dover transferred those operations to its plant in Dover, Ohio, site of its headquarters. Ineos produces its materials at plants in Runcorn and in Baleycourt, France.
Besides Dover, Houston-based Pioneer Chemicals is the only other significant North American producer of chlorinated paraffins, manufacturing them at its plant in Cornwall, Ontario. Most of its material goes to the plastics industry but it said after the Dover-Keil merger that it planned to seek more customers in the metalworking fluids market.