A Century Of Success

In 1905, Societe Anonyme des Explosifs et Produit Chimique of Paris acquired The High Explosives Co. Ltd. situated near Great Oakley in Essex. This established a presence for EPC Groupe in the United Kingdom. The new company was registered on 6 April 1905 as The Explosives and Chemical Products Limited. Industrial explosives manufacture continued on the site into the 1980s, but in the early 1950s a second site was acquired at South Normanton in Derbyshire. This site, now the major location for exchems explosives businesses, took manufacturing nearer to its mining and quarrying customer base. A business supplying roof bolts and adhesives to the mining and construction industries was spun out in 1977 to a stand-alone unit in Alfreton. In 1973 the company changed its name to Exchem Holdings Limited, and then in 1982 to Exchem Public Limited Company.

From the mid 1950s several new ventures were initiated from the Great Oakley site, including Oakley Farm Products, which supplied part-cooked chilled potato chips into the London catering market. Associated with this business was a pig and poultry operation using the by-products of potato processing. In 1986, explosives activities were discontinued on the Great Oakley site, but a speciality chemicals operation was initiated in its place operating under the name Exchem Industries Limited. Initially, a continuous process on the old nitro-glycerine plant manufactured the Diesel fuel additive, 2-ethyl hexyl nitrate. A fine chemicals activity was initiated in late 1989 and investment in batch production facilities was made. In 1996, Exchem Industries Limited was acquired by Exchem plc and became exchem organics, joining with exchem explosives and exchem mining & construction as the operating divisions of Exchem plc. In 2002 a new business, Exchem Defence Systems Ltd., was floated from the Great Oakley site to develop handling of explosives for non-routine applications.

The celebration of A Century of Success also coincides with the commissioning of a brand new chemicals manufacturing facility. The new building has been appropriately christened as the Centenary Building and incorporates two separate processing areas; the MK Plant for producing thousands of kilos and the CK Plant for producing hundreds of kilos of sophisticated chemicals. Coupled with the XK Plant for producing tens of kilos and modern laboratories, the new facility gives exchem organics a clear platform for development. As a launch for the second Century of Success, the opening of a new, state-of-the-art chemicals plant builds on the core Diesel additives business, and the first hundred years of experience, towards sustainability of the Great Oakley operation.