Koppers is a global chemical and materials company based in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, United States in an

art-deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the United ...

1920s skyscraper, the

Koppers Tower Koppers Building is a historical building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, commissioned by Andrew W. Mellon and completed in 1929. The building is named after the Koppers Chemical Corporation and is one of the major features of Downtown Pittsburgh. ...

Structure

Koppers is an integrated global producer of carbon compounds, chemicals, and treated wood products for the aluminum, railroad, specialty chemical, utility, rubber, steel, residential lumber, and agriculture industries. It serves customers through a comprehensive global manufacturing and distribution network with facilities located in North America, South America, Australasia, China, and Europe. Koppers operates three principal businesses: Performance Chemicals, Railroad and Utility Products and Services, and Carbon Materials and Chemicals.

History

In 1912 immigrant German engineer

Heinrich Koppers Heinrich Koppers (November 23, 1872 – September 5, 1941) was a German engineer. Koppers developed a new type of coke oven that economically recovered the byproduct chemicals of the coking process. The design of these ovens was superior to other ...

founded Koppers Company in Chicago, Illinois. In 1915 the organization moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company founder's interest in the company was bought out by Pittsburgh financier

Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), sometimes A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. From the wealthy Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva ...

, who became a large shareholder. The landmark Koppers Building in downtown Pittsburgh opened in 1929. In 1943, Koppers, at the US Government's behest, built a factory in

Kobuta, Pennsylvania Kobuta is an unincorporated community in Potter Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located along the Ohio River, due west of Monaca, southwest of Industry, and southwest of Beaver. The area was the site of a butadiene, a ...

on the Ohio River downriver from

Beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

, to manufacture

styrene Styrene () is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5CH=CH2. This derivative of benzene is a colorless oily liquid, although aged samples can appear yellowish. The compound evaporates easily and has a sweet smell, although high concen ...

butadiene 1,3-Butadiene () is the organic compound with the formula (CH2=CH)2. It is a colorless gas that is easily condensed to a liquid. It is important industrially as a precursor to synthetic rubber. The molecule can be viewed as the union of two viny ...

monomer, a building block used to make a form of synthetic rubber for the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

defense effort. In 1951, at

Port Arthur, Texas Port Arthur is a city in Jefferson County within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Texas. A small, uninhabited portion extends into Orange County; it is east of Houston. The largest oil refinery in the United Sta ...

, the company built a plant to manufacture

ethylbenzene Ethylbenzene is an organic compound with the formula . It is a highly flammable, colorless liquid with an odor similar to that of gasoline. This monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbon is important in the petrochemical industry as an reaction intermediat ...

, using as raw materials

ethylene Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula or . It is a colourless, flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon-carbon double bonds). Ethylene i ...

from the nearby

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

refinery, and benzene, which was a byproduct of the company's coke ovens in Pennsylvania, which was shipped to Texas by barge. The ethylbenzene produced there was then shipped by barge back to the Kobuta plant where it was converted to styrene monomer, and then polymerized to make expandable polystyrene. In the early 1950s, the company purchased a license to manufacture polyethylene at its Port Arthur plant. These chemical operations later were the basis for forming a new corporate entity with

Sinclair Oil Corporation Sinclair Oil Corporation was an American petroleum corporation, founded by Harry F. Sinclair on May 1, 1916, the Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation combined, amalgamated, the assets of 11 small petroleum companies. Originally a New York cor ...

to form the Sinclair-Koppers Company in 1965. In the 1960s, Koppers opened a Noise Control division and manufactured prefabricated

sound trap A sound attenuator, or duct silencer, sound trap, or muffler, is a noise control acoustical treatment of Heating Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) ductwork designed to reduce transmission of noise through the ductwork, either from equipment ...

s. In 2001, the company had to close a wood treatment plant in

Oroville, California Oroville (''Oro'', Spanish for "Gold" and ''Ville'', French for "town") is the county seat of Butte County, California, United States. The population of the city was 15,506 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 13,004 in the 200 ...

due to contamination of the 205 acre facility and the surrounding area. Chemicals like PCP and chromium were found to have been leaked into the local drinking water supply.

Beazer hostile takeover

In early 1988

Beazer Beazer was a family business for six generationsC.H.Beazer (Holdings) Prospectus, July 1973 before expanding in the 1980s into international housebuilding, construction and building materials group. After becoming overburdened with debt it was r ...

, a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

conglomerate run by one of the foremost

corporate raid In business, a corporate raid is the process of buying a large stake in a corporation and then using shareholder voting rights to require the company to undertake novel measures designed to increase the share value, generally in opposition to t ...

ers of the 1980s, successfully launched a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

of Koppers Company for $1.81 billion ($ billion today). The sale was completed on June 17, 198

A smaller, more streamlined domestic business unit of Koppers Company, Koppers Industries was bought back by local management later in 1988. Although much simpler than the once sprawling chemical and aggregate conglomerate of the early-to-mid 20th century, Koppers Industries once again become successful at its core businesses. In 2006 the new Beazer-free independent Koppers Incorporated again went publi

Current business interests

Koppers operates facilities in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia and China. The coal tar processor

Cindu Chemicals Cindu may refer to: * Chemische Industrie Uithoorn, (CINDU), Dutch chemical company *One of the divisions of Tamil music dealt with in the Pancha Marapu {{Disambig ...

in the Netherlands was acquired in 2010. Koppers sources coal tar from around the world for further processing by distillation into carbon chemicals.

Products

In North America, Koppers is the largest provider of railroad crossties for the Class I Railroads and are known for pre-plated crossties. Koppers Carbon Materials and Chemicals are used in the production of a variety of manufactured goods including aluminum, steel, plastics, resins, treated wood, and rubber products. These products also increase the durability and extend the life of products such as railroad ties, utility and transmission poles, and marine pilings. A Koppers primary raw material is

coal tar Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoriasi ...

. Asphalt sealants produced from coal tar contain

benzo(a)pyrene Benzo 'a''yrene (B''a''P or B ) is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and the result of incomplete combustion of organic matter at temperatures between and . The ubiquitous compound can be found in coal tar, tobacco smoke and many foods, espec ...

and other toxic chemicals known collectively as

polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. ...

s, or PAHs.Chicago Tribune, January 15, 2011, New Doubts Cast on Safety of Common Driveway Sealant, by Michael Hawthorne, http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-toxic-coal-tar-sealant-20110115,0,7422954,full.story

References

External links

Koppers homepage

History and description of the Koppers Tower by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
{{Authority control Coal in the United States Chemical companies of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Manufacturing companies based in Pittsburgh Chemical companies established in 1912 Superfund sites in South Carolina Superfund sites in Delaware 1912 establishments in Pennsylvania