Chemical plant to close and 300 workers axed

Jan 14 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

A TEESSIDE chemical plant is to close with the loss of 300 jobs as the dramatic decline in demand for big ticket items such as cars and carpets continues its unemployment ripple through the supply chain of the companies who make the goods.

The plant has been making nylon and polymer intermediaries since 1957 at Wilton near Redcar. It has survived previous economic downturns but this one looks like closing it for good.

Invista Textiles, who bought it from DuPont in 2004, announced yesterday it had begun consultation with trade unions and employee representatives regarding a proposal to cease production at the company’s manufacturing site at Wilton. Invista is part of privately-owned US chemical giant Koch Industries.

It added: “The current downturn in the housing, automobile, textiles and other key markets has caused a steep and rapid decline in demand for the products produced at the site.

“These factors, as well as high infrastructure costs, have compromised the Wilton site’s ability to be globally competitive going forward.”

Thousands of jobs in the North East have been lost or put at risk in recent months as a result of the economic downturn.

The construction sector was the first to be hit last year with hundreds of jobs being shed, then it was the motor industry with Nissan announcing 1,200 jobs were to be axed; hundreds more are being lost at companies in its supply chain.

Now it looks like the North East chemical sector, which is one of the region’s biggest employers – particularly on Teesside – is being affected.

Stan Higgins, chief executive of process industry body NEPIC, said: “We were sorry to hear the decision to close the nylon facility at Wilton, though in the current economic climate this comes as no surprise. We are finding that those companies that supply large quantities of materials which are used in houses, cars, large engineering structures – these are generally materials such as polymers, like nylon.

“These companies experienced a fast and severe downturn in the demand for their products at the end of last year.

“Some companies like Invista will not be able to survive this current downturn past the middle of this year, when we all hope there is significant improvement in the global economy which will trigger a demand for high volume products.

“However elsewhere in the chemical economy – in speciality and fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals – there appears to have been less of an impact.”

Raul Trochez, Wilton site manager said: “We will be discussing this proposal in more detail with employee representatives and unions and will make every effort to keep our employees informed of further developments during the consultation process.” Mr Higgins added: “As has been the case over recent years when we’ve had a number of closures announced, NEPIC will be here to support companies through this difficult time and offer help to place employees into further employment whenever we can.

“It is still a fact that the demographics of our industry require us to recruit upwards of 8,000 people by 2014 in the region to stand still.

“This number might fall a little in light of current economic problems, but over the next five to 10 years we will still need to recruit a lot of people in our sector.”

Invista is a subsidiary of privately owned Koch Industries and operates in more than 20 countries.

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