Continental Carbon Australia to close

US-based company Koppers Holdings Inc. has announced the end of manufacturing at its Continental Carbon Australia plant in Kurnell, just south of Sydney. The carbon black facility is scheduled to end operations during the week of 5 December 2011 and preparations for closing the plant will be made over the coming four months. Koppers says the decision, which will affect approximately 65 employees, was taken as a result of an analysis of its manufacturing facilities; this highlighted a number of negative factors working against the Continental Carbon Australia plant, including the strong Australian dollar and raw material availability and cost.

The plant, which entered service in 1966, was formerly a major supplier of oil furnace grade carbon blacks to the Australian automotive, tyre and rubber industries. During its 45 years of operation the facility witnessed the decline and eventual end of tyre manufacturing in Australia; the country’s last factory producing new tyres, Bridgestone’s Salisbury plant in South Australia, ended operations in April 2010.