OCI planning $19.15 million expansion
Decatur-based OCI Alabama is starting a major expansion as it takes advantage of its status as the only North American producer of a chemical used in dish and laundry detergents.
OCI is planning a $19.15 million expansion of its manufacturing facility at 1455 Red Hat Road in Decatur’s police jurisdiction of Morgan County.
The project includes a new warehouse, silos, expanded railyard and buildings, and installation of unloading equipment and a packaging system.
OCI’s headquarters is in Decatur’s Mallard-Fox Creek Industrial Park, where it’s been located for 24 years. The company has 65 employees, with the project expected to add five more.
Christian Pollastro, OCI vice president of manufacturing, said this is an infrastructure expansion.
OCI makes sodium percarbonate, which Pollastro said is the active ingredient used in most detergents.
“Any type of detergent, Cascade, Tide, whatever, we’re in it,” he said.
Pollastro said the company’s only competitors are in China and Korea after its only North American competitor, in Texas, went out of business recently.
“Here in Decatur, Alabama, we are the only producer of sodium percarbonate in North and South America,” he said.
Pollastro said OCI usually produces 70,000 metric tons per years of sodium percarbonate, and it’s already produced that amount in May of this year.
He said this is the first phase of an expansion plan for OCI. This phase is needed “because right now we store our raw materials cars on the Norfolk Southern railway tracks” at a major expense. They also have to store finished materials offsite in another warehouse because they don’t have the space.
Pollastro said Phase 1 includes putting in four more rail tracks, plus a loading facility with two more silos for raw materials storage and a 50,000- square-foot warehouse that will allow them to bring all materials back on site. There will also be a new packaging line.
He said the company is growing quickly, so this project will bolster its infrastructure and then hopefully in a year or two they will be coming back with an expansion that will increase capacity by 20,000 metric tons.
“We have enough property to do all of this,” Pollastro said. “We’re not a huge plant as far as manpower. We’ve automated quite a bit, but it makes jobs more stable, and that’s a good thing.”