UK chemicals firm defies the gloom

Wakefield, UK - Brotherton Speciality Products, part of Italian group Esseco is investing Euro4.5 million to establish a new sulphite production facility at its Calder Vale Road site in Wakefield. Due for startup in June 2010, the unit will supply markets in the UK and Ireland as well as in Scandinavia.

According to Brotherton MD Roger Perry, the plant will employ a proprietary process, designed by Esseco, with an Italian-based specialist engineering firm Co-ver signed up to deliver the design engineering. The facility will be similar to one operated by the Italian parent company, which supplies the rest of Europe.

The UK company - soon to be renamed Brotherton Esseco Ltd - currently buys in sulphur dioxide, a hazardous chemical, to manufacture its sulphite products, explained Perry. The new facility , he said, will process sulphur to make sulphur dioxie in-situ and mean big gains in terms of costs and safety.

""We will be able to reduce costs considerably as we will be buying in a very much cheaper raw material. Sulphur is a by-product of the petroleum refining process so it is a low cost ingredient, with the UK now a net exporter," said Perry. "So by putting this plant in, we are giving ourselves a very good platform to supply the market at the lowest cost, while also improving safety."

Brotherton, which claims to be the UK's only sulphite manufacturer, produces sodium bisulphite, ammonium bisulphite and ammonium thiosulpthate - all in solution. The chemicals are used in sectors including food, water, oil field chemcials and increasingly agriculture.

"Ammonium thiosulphite used to be used in the photographic trade as a fixer, but that market has gone. However it now has a growing market now as a specialist fertiliser because soils are now deficient in sulphur as a result of cleaning up the air with no SO2 coming out of chimneys, said Perry.  "Sodium bisulphite is used as a scavenger in scrubbers to remove chlorine in industrial plants.