South Carolina-based specialty chemical company Ethox Chemicals, a division of Syntha Group, has begun construction on a new greenfield chemical plant in Pasadena, Texas, to be co-located on 17 acres the company purchased from global chemical company Kao.
This Texas facility will be the company's second, with the first one located on a 45-acre site in Greenville, South Carolina. Speaking recently at a Houston-area industry event, Ethox VP of Operations Doug Taft said the company is very strong and needed to add a lot of capacity.
According to Taft, Ethox makes surfactants for all types of industries, including specialty batch chemical plants, and has approximately 300 active products and a large customer base. The project to build the new site in Texas was in the idea stage for many years and it's been about three years since the company bought the property, Taft said.
Explaining the initial work that needed to be done to get the project started, Taft said there was concrete to be cleared, roads to the site to be rehabilitated, railroad tracks repurposed, buildings designed and a large stormwater pond added. "We now have contractors for our commercial buildings, concrete pads and structural steel," Taft said. "We have purchased all our vessels and are still working on procurement for smaller equipment contractors."
Taft said Ethox has hired a Houston-based site manager who will start work in January and will begin taking over many of Taft's responsibilities, including much of the purchasing and local hiring needs which includes both contractors and permanent employees. As a way of vetting good contractors, Taft said, Ethox starts with contractors for small projects and then slowly adds bigger projects once there has been proven success, adding for the benefit of contractors in the audience, "we hear from other plants about contractors that do a really good job."
Taft said when looking for contractors safety is first, second is high-quality products and third is staying on budget and keeping to the timeline.
