Newcastle Chemical Park Unveiled
In January 2014, a competition was run in the Newcastle Advertiser, whereby the Newcastle public was asked to suggest possible site names.
The site commonly known to many as the Karbochem site officially unveiled its new name on Thursday, August 21.
Karbochem has been part of the Newcastle landscape since 1982 and has extensive history. The business was initially set up as a synthetic rubber producer of its holding company, Sentrachem Limited. During the 80s and 90s, Sentrachem, entered into the Calcium Carbide, Amines and Chromic Acid businesses. In 1997, DOW Chemical Company acquired Sentrachem and all its sub divisions. In 2003, the DOW Chemical Company decided to divest the companies within the acquired Sentrachem Group and sold each business unit as separate entities to management consortiums.
The synthetic rubber business, the largest business unit, was changed to Karbochem (Pty) Ltd, the calcium carbide business became known as South African Calcium Carbide (Pty) Ltd, a subsidy of the Andina Group. The Amines business was taken over in a joint venture between Sasol and Air Products under the name African Amines (Pty) Ltd. In 2009 African Amines was acquired by US Amines. The Chrome International South Africa business unit was sold to Bayer AG Chemicals that later changed its name to Lanxess CISA.
Given the long history associated with the name of Karbochem and the fact all the business units were divested 10 years ago, the company felt it was an opportune time to call for a site name so each company on site was credited for the various projects and job creation that contributed to
Newcastle and its surrounding communities. In recent years, the Karbochem site welcomed new business units such as New Cogen (IPSA) and KC Energy (Pty) Ltd. Although they were tenants on the site, Karbochem felt it was pivotal the site had an independent name that would allow all business units on the premises to build their own brand, without being shadowed by the Karbochem name.
In January 2014, a competition was run in the Newcastle Advertiser, whereby the Newcastle public was asked to suggest possible site names. The names were shortlisted and a committee comprising of representatives from all the businesses agreed on Newcastle Chemical Park. The winner was Mr Leon Vermaak who won R 3000 for his suggestion.
