Tronox officials have announced the company will cease production of sodium chlorate at its Hamilton facility at the end of November, a move that will affect 70 employees, of whom 30 are expected to move into jobs at the company’s larger titanium dioxide facility located on the same property.
Tronox spokesman Bud Grebey told The Dispatch employees of the chemical company were notified of the decision Wednesday.
“We had one dedicated customer for our sodium chlorate product,” Grebey said. “This year, we will have produced 72,000 metric tons for that company, but they informed us that they will not be purchasing any additional product as of Nov. 30.”
Sodium chlorate is used primarily as an environmentally-friendly alternative to bleach used to whiten paper products.
Grebey said 30 employees will be allowed to apply for positions in the company’s titanium dioxide division.
With 420 full-time employees and 275 contractors, the titanium dioxide facility is, by far, the larger of the two operations.
Titanium dioxide is a pigment product used for a variety of products, including paint, sunscreen and even food coloring. With over 50 years of operational success, Hamilton’s titanium dioxide manufacturing operation is the third largest of its kind in the world with annual production capacity of approximately 225,000 metric tons.
While demand for its pigment product is strong, the same could not be said for its sodium chlorate product.
“The demand for paper products that use sodium chlorate has continued to decrease over the years,” Grebey said. “In 2013, we signed a two-year non-compete contract with Erco Worldwide to provide up to 130 metric tons of sodium chlorate. They notified us they had no plans to purchase our product for 2016. In a sense, signing that contract with Erco delayed closing our sodium chlorate operations for a couple of years.”
Grebey said the 40 employees who will not be offered an opportunity to move over to the company’s titanium dioxide division will be provided a severance package, extended benefits and outplacement services.
“We wanted to get this information out to those employees as soon as possible,” Grebey said. “This gives them six months to prepare to find employment.”
Grebey said the company is weighing options on what to do with the sodium chlorate facility, which occupies about 10 percent of the company’s property. He said the company might choose to sell the equipment and demolish the sodium chlorate facility or use it for expansion of the titanium dioxide operations.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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