Mansonville EPS plant re-starts as Nexkemia Pétrochimie

Edison, NJ, March 12, 2009 - A new company has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of Huntsman’s Mansonville, QC expandable polystyrene plant. It is Nexkemia Pétrochimie and is owned by Maurice Barakat, who also owns TCP Reliable and Distribution Dynamics Laboratory (DDL) in Edison, NJ.

When Huntsman sold its polymers business to Flint Hills Resources in 2007, the Mansonville EPS plant was shut down (see C2+Oct07). After 15 months, the plant re-started in November. The plant has three medium-sized reactors with 45 M lbs capacity. It also has a polymer laboratory; a screening, finishing and packaging line; and now access to DDL, one of the largest testing and qualification laboratories in North America. Styrene monomer comes from Ineos-Nova in Sarnia and Shell in Scotford. One of the upsides to the weak economy was that it was easier to rehire 20 of the original 45 employees, including Pierre Beaudry, the plant manager, and (according to Barakat) "a lot of intellectual horsepower". An EPS formulation chemist was hired to develop new formulations as the company is not using the Huntsman formulations.

Nexkemia sells to molders who make blocks and shapes. The blocks are used in construction applications such as panels, roofs and geoform for foundations e.g. of roads where it fills in the void under the surface. Shapes are used in packaging e.g. insulated shipping containers; and in OEM applications such as the foundation for bicycle helmets. Nexkemia’s strategy is to provide both polymer and technical support to the molders to enable them to pursue niche, higher value added applications. The company says it has already developed some formulations, which have been well received by the molders, and is producing commercial quantities of these. Of course it will also need a baseload of commodity business. It emphasizes that many molders are within a 400 mile radius of Mansonville and that dealing with cheaper imports from Asia involves managing a 90-day supply chain. One of TCP Reliable’s products is insulated shipping containers for the healthcare industry and two of these use EPS – the molded insulated container and fabricated container. The company is thus already a buyer of EPS.