Albemarle Corporation
Contents
Major Businesses
Bromine chemicals including methyl bromide, flame retardants; speciality chemicals: ibuprofen, MMT gasoline additive, detergents and surfactants.
Operations: Plants and facilities in Arkansas, Texas, South Carolina, Belgium and France.
Revenues: $1.2 billion in 1995
Profits: $78 million in 1995
Affiliations
- Methyl Bromide Working Group,
- Methyl Bromide Global Coalition,
- the European Methyl Bromide Association,
- Bromine Science and Environment Forum.
Albemarle's History
Albemarle Corporation's roots are with the General Motors-DuPont merger of 1920. During the 1920's, GM-DuPont invented both CFC's and the tetraethyl lead additive. GM-DuPont formed a 50-50 joint venture with the most powerful of petroleum corporations, Standard Oil of New Jersey (today, Exxon), to produce and market the chemical. The new company was called the Ethyl Corporation [3].
Products and politics
The Ethyl Corporation's products were soon realised to be a threat to public health, and in 1924 the story broke that 80 percent of the workers who produced tetraethyl lead had either been killed or were suffering acute poisoning.[1] The Surgeon General set up a panel to investigate the effects of the lead additive, but Ethyl employed a lengthy lobbying and PR campaign, and the product remained on the market until 1972, the same year DDT was banned. Ethyl fought the phase-out claiming that leaded petrol emissions posed no human health hazards (Robert, 1983, p. 321). To this day, they deny the hazards of TEL. As late as 1990, Floyd D. Gottwald Jr. claimed that "no conclusive scientific evidence has ever linked the use of lead in gasoline to human health problems."[2]
Ethyl/Albemarle have repeatedly been fined for spilling corrosive salt brine used to produce bromine, and for emissions of methyl bromide Albemarle has tried to disassociate itself from the reputation of its mother company Ethyl, it has quickly created its own reputation for environmental crimes. In 1993, the EPA announced $544,000 in fines for 9 violations at an Albemarle plant. In 1994, the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology announced it would fine Albemarle $332,500 for 91 alleged air pollution and record-keeping violations.[3]
