Story Photos
 Photo by Roger Werth Equa-Chlor plant manager Jim Sims, left, and president Timothy Bistolas discuss plans for a new chlor-alkali plant at the site Tuesday. Demolition work on the former Weyerhaeuser Co. chlor-alkali plant is two-thirds complete, with construction of the new Equa-Chlor plant starting soon. Bistolas said he expects the plant to be shipping product by early 2006. |
Work begins on chlor-alkali plant
Wednesday, November 10, 2004 7:39 AM PST
By Pat Forgey
Printable version
E-mail this articleMany American jobs have gone overseas in recent years, and 50 new jobs that are coming to Longview next year almost did as well.
A Portland chemical company was selling a bunch of equipment from a modern chlor-alkali plant a few years ago, and a company from India was looking at buying it and moving it to India.
Instead, chemical industry veteran Timothy Bistolas put together an even better deal.
He knew that Weyerhaeuser Co. had recently closed its chlor-alkali plant at its Longview mill site. His newly formed company, Equa-Chlor, bought the equipment and leased the 10-acre Weyerhaeuser plant site.
Tuesday, Equa-Chlor broke ground for its new plant that will produce industrial water purification products, including chlorine, caustic soda and bleach.
By the start of 2006, Bistolas said, Equa-Chlor will be shipping chlorine from Longview --- and employing 50 full-time workers. General contractor Robinson Construction Inc. of Sumner, Wash., will hire an additional 75 construction workers during the year, and many of those will be hired locally as well, he said.
Bistolas said last year the plant would cost about $30 million, but Tuesday he declined to specify the company's final investment because that number might clue in competitors to his production costs and likely pricing.
Equa-Chlor is entering a competitive market, but Bistolas said the markets have improved since the company was proposed. Just five years ago there were five chlor-alkali plants in the Pacific Northwest, including Weyerhaeuser's. All have closed, leaving the market open for a local producer.
"The markets have cooperated with us," Bistolas said.
Producing locally will give Equa-Chlor a competitive advantage in the Pacific Northwest market, he said.
"People were having to bring chlorine all the way from Niagara Falls," Bistolas said.
Longview's good highway and rail access make this a good place for a plant, he said, because most of its product is shipped by truck or rail tank car. Many potential pulp mill customers are located along the Columbia River, and Bistolas said he would like to resume shipping by barge because it is much more efficient that either truck or rail.
Equa-Chlor hired Universal Dynamics America Corporation to handle the engineering and design of the new plant. Its senior project manager assigned to the project was Jim Sims, who had been the manager of the Weyerhaeuser chlor-alkali plant when it was shut down in 1999. Now he's been hired away by Equa-Chlor to manage the new plant.
"I think it's only right and just that he gets to reopen this facility," Bistolas said.
Ted Sprague of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council said they've been working with Equa-Chlor for nearly three years, and the company has been good to deal with.
"They have a unique tendency to understate and overdeliver," he said.
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