Conti Carbon shutters Alabama carbon black facility

PHENIX CITY, Ala.—Continental Carbon Co., which has operated a tire tread-grade carbon black plant in Alabama since the mid-1980s, has shuttered its 120-person plant near the Georgia border.

Continental Carbon President Dennis Hetu confirmed to Rubber News Jan. 3 that the plant closed Dec. 31, 2022.

The company was ordered Dec. 8, 2022, to shutter the facility by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

According to the Dec. 8 letter, the plant was forced to cease operations for failing to institute plant upgrades (mandated by the U.S. EPA and Department of Justice in 2015) to meet U.S. EPA Clean Air Act standards.

"Per the requirements of the consent decree (5: 15-cv-0090-F) filed on March 23, 2015, and amended on Dec. 22, 2017, (Continental Carbon Co.) is required to install and operate multiple air pollution control systems on or before Dec. 31, 2022, at the plant," according to the Dec. 8 letter from Ronald W. Gore, chief of the air division at ADEM. "Per previous correspondence between CCC, the (ADEM), and the U.S. EPA, CCC indicated that it had not begun to install the required control systems and would not do so by the deadline.

"Therefore, the department concludes that CCC must shut down the Phenix City plant on or before Dec. 31, 2022."

Hetu said the company requested an extension earlier this year to fully implement the plant upgrades in Phenix City, but was denied.

"Unfortunately, it is true," Hetu said Dec. 22. "Our illustrious government in its infinite wisdom thinks it is better to shut down a carbon black plant versus giving us an extension.

"That is only going to allow more Russian- and Chinese-made carbon black, made from non-environmentally sound processes, to be imported into the U.S. All this has done is take away 100 to 120 jobs, between 20 and 30 contractors, and an extensive chunk of carbon black from the market."

Operating at about 80-percent capacity at the time of its closure, Hetu said the Phenix City plant produced between 40 and 45 kilotons of CB per year. At full capacity, the plant produced between 50 and 60 kilotons per year, he said.

According to the ADEM, Houston-based Continental Carbon never made upgrades to air pollution control systems that were mandated following a March 2015 consent decree reached between CCC, the U.S. EPA and the Department of Justice.

In the agreement, Continental Carbon was ordered to invest or pay more than $100 million in plant upgrades, mitigation projects and civil penalties for by-product pollutants (namely sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide) being emitted in three cities, including Phenix City.

Plants in Ponca City, Okla., and Sunray, Texas, were included in the nearly 8-year-old consent decree, which was modified again in 2017.

Upgrades at the Oklahoma and Texas plants have been made, according to Continental Carbon. All told, upgrades across all three plants have run closer to $250 million for Continental Carbon, Hetu said.

Of the nearly $100 million CCC was ordered to invest or pay, $98 million was to go to plant upgrades at the three sites; $550,000 was to go toward mitigation projects in and around the communities where the plants are operating; and $650,000 was paid by CCC in civil penalties.

Between $10 million and $15 million already had been spent toward upgrades in Phenix City, Hetu said.

The 120 employees who work at the Phenix City location make tire tread-grade carbon black using traditional furnace black methods.

Continental Carbon has said that the plant contributed upwards of $6 million to the local economy and paid about $550,000 in taxes per year.

Check back at rubbernews.com for updates on the future of the Phenix City production facility.