Overview of Noveon Kalama

Noveon Kalama, Inc., certified to both ISO 9002 and ISO 14001, is a diverse manufacturer of specialty, fine and commodity chemicals and a leading world producer of certain flavor/fragrance compounds and preservatives.

Novoen Kalama's production plant is located in the United States Pacific Northwest, on the Columbia River near the town of Kalama, Washington, about 30 miles north of Portland, Oregon. The principal sales office is located in Seattle, Washington.

We are proud of the Pacific Northwest, and proud to be part of the Kalama, Washington community, which has hosted our plant for more than three decades.

History of Noveon Kalama, Inc.

The Kalama plant, completed in 1962 by Dow Chemical Company, became the largest producer of phenol on the West Coast. The plant location was selected for the specific purpose of providing phenol, an ingredient in veneer adhesives, to the Pacific Northwest plywood industry.

In 1971, Dow sold the plant to three of its former employees, at which time it was named Kalama Chemical, Inc. The new owners changed the operational philosophy from that of a single-product commodity chemical plant to a multi-product specialty chemical facility. By taking advantage of the original plant's unique two-step toluene oxidation process for making phenol, the Kalama plant was able to concentrate on making fine and specialty chemicals from the intermediate chemicals formed during the oxidation of toluene.

The Kalama plant was sold to British Columbia Sugar, a Canadian corporation, in 1988. Subsequently, the plant was purchased by Freedom Chemical of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1994, at which time the plant was renamed to Freedom Kalama. Just recently, Noveon (formerly BFGoodrich) acquired the plant in March 1998, as part of its purchase of Freedom Chemical. The Kalama plant's name has now been changed to Noveon Kalama.

Today as a proud member of the Noveon family, the Kalama plant continues to stress our diverse operational philosophy, manufacturing and selling a wide range of chemical products, including: benzoic acid, benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol, benzyl amine, sodium and potassium benzoate, K-Flex?dibenzoate plasticizers, nonyl phenol, benzyl benzoate, cinnamic aldehydes, dibenzyl amine, benzyl acetate, benzyl salicylate, cinnamic alcohol as well as phenol.

Noveon Kalama now produces about 175,000 tons of product each year for use in the further manufacture of such items as food preservatives and vitamins, fragrances and perfumes, photographic chemicals, adhesives, resins, coatings, dyes, detergents, sun screens and solvents.