Nobel Enterprises (phonetic: [nobél]) is a chemicals business based at Ardeer, near to the North Ayrshire town of Stevenston in Scotland. It specialises in nitrogen-based propellants and explosives and nitrocellulose-based products such as varnishes and inks. It was formerly ICI Nobel, a division of the chemicals group ICI, but is now owned by Inabata & Company, a Japanese trading firm.
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Nobel Industries Limited was founded in 1870 by Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel for the production of the new explosive dynamite. Ardeer, on the coast at Ayrshire, was chosen for the company's first factory. The business later diversified into the production of blasting gelatine, gelignite, ballistite, guncotton, and cordite. At its peak, the factory was employing nearly 13,000 workers.
In 1926, the firm merged with Brunner, Mond & Company, the United Alkali Company, and the British Dyestuffs Corporation, creating a new group, Imperial Chemical Industries, then one of Britain's largest firms. Nobel Industries continued as the ICI Nobel division of the company.
ICI Ardeer was commonly known locally as the 'factory' or the 'Dinnamite'. At the time the company generally provided higher quality employment regarding terms and conditions and pension rights than other local firms. The Ardeer site was almost like a community, and there were so many people employed there that a bank, travel agent and dentist were at one time based on the site. The former Western Scottish Bus Company provided tens of buses per day to transport the workers to and from the site, and until the mid 1960s there were even two trains per day to transport workers to a station within the factory.
Interestingly though, a documentary some years ago revealed that some workers on the site may have been addicted to nitroglycerine simply by being in contact with it every day. In the programme, ex-workers spoke of the terrible headaches they encountered during their annual holidays, which it is suspected was caused by the absence of the product from their day to day lives.
In the late 1960s construction began on a nylon and nitric acid plant, but this had a short life, closing down just 12 years later.
In 2002 the division, now named Nobel Enterprises, was sold to Inabata.
On 8 September 2007 a major fire was reported at the site when 1,500-1,700 tons of nitrocellulose, stored in an open area, caught fire. There was little property damage and no serious injuries.