| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NYSE: KOP |
| Industry | Chemicals |
| Founded | 1912 |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Key people | Walter W. Turner, President and Chief Executive Officer Steven R. Lacy Senior Vice President, Administration, General Counsel and Secretary, Brian H. McCurrie, Chief Financial Officer Kevin J. Fitzgerald, Vice President and General Manager, Carbon Materials and Chemicals Thomas D. Loadman, Vice President and General Manager, Railroad Products and Services. M. Claire Schaming ,Treasurer and Assistant Secretary, Robert Cizik Chairman of the Board of Directors |
| Products | Coke wood processing Coal tar crossties Utility poles creosote carbon black phthalic anhydride |
| Revenue | $1.16 billion USD |
| Employees | 2,100 |
| Website | www.koppers.com |
Koppers is a global chemical and materials company based in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States in an art-deco 1920s skyscraper, the Koppers Tower.
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The corporation is divided into two divisions: Carbon and Chemicals, and Railroad and Utility. The company specialises in manufacturing carbon chemicals from coal tar. The five main chemicals that are produced are coal pitch for steel and aluminum production, carbon black for rubber vulcanization, creosote for wood treatment, and naphthalene and phthalic anhydride for plastics and polyester. Kopper's coal tar pitches are essential to manufacturing carbon anodes for aluminum smelting. Koppers also has extensive operations making creosote treated wood products, especially railroad ties and switches. Utility poles, foundations, decking materials, and wooden panneling are also produced by the company. Through its subisdy, Arch Wood Protection, the corporation also develops chemicals that protect wood from being weathered.
In 1943, Koppers, at the US Government's behest, built a factory in Kobuta, Pennsylvania on the left bank of the Ohio River just downriver from Beaver, to manufacture styrene-butadiene monomer, a building block used to make a form of synthetic rubber for the World War II defense effort.
In 1951, at Port Arthur, Texas, the company built a plant to manufacture the chemical monomer ethylbenzene, using as raw materials ethylene from the nearby Gulf Oil refinery, and benzene, which was a byproduct of the company's coke ovens in PA and which was shipped down to TX by barge. The ethylbenzene produced there was then shipped by barge back up to the Kobuta plant where it was converted to styrene monomer, and then polymerized to make expandable polystyrene, familiar to all as an insulating and lightweight packing material when further formed. In the early 1950s, the company purchased a license to manufacture polyethylene plastic polymerized at low pressure from the Gulf Oil ethylene feedstock, in a new addition to its Port Arthur plant. These chemical operations later were the basis for forming a new corporate entity with Sinclair Oil Corporation to form the Sinclair-Koppers Company in 1965.
Koppers operates facilities in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, China, South Africa. Koppers sources coal tar from around the world for further processing by distillation into carbon chemicals. The Company owns its own coke oven battery in Monessen, Pennsylvania. The Monessen facility operates 57 ovens with a combined annual capacity of over 360,000 tons of coke. The company further operates coke ovens in Tangshan, People's Republic of China, and has co-located facilities near the operations of major steel makers.
The stock of Koppers Holdings Inc. is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "KOP". The Board of Directors intends to pay an annual dividend of $0.68 a share to shareholders.
One of Koppers' leading products is coal tar, and the company made about one-third of the country's coal tar in 2007. Research shows that the tar used in asphalt sealants to protect them wears away and deteriorates into contaminated dust that is tracked into homes and washed into streams and lakes. The makers of asphalt sealants, made with coal tar, which has been linked to cancer and other health problems, say that the products contain high levels of benzo(a)pyrene and other toxic chemicals known collectively as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. Yet, they claim that their products are not responsible for the environmental contamination learned in government studies.[1]
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