OLIN MATHIESON DOE RUN PLANT
^^LIN MATHIESON Chemical Corporation is
one of the fastest growing chemical com
panies in the country.
The Doe Run Plant at Brandenburg, Ky., is
part of that growth. It has put Olin Mathieson
in a new field, the manufacture of petrochemicals.
These chemicals are made either directly or in
directly from petroleum. One form of petroleum
is natural gas. To be successful in its new ven
ture, it was necessary for Olin Mathieson to find
a source either of petroleum or natural gas. The
natural gas pipeline of the Tennessee Gas Trans
mission Company provided this source.
Tennessee Gas owns and operates a huge nat
ural gas pipeline that collects natural gas in Louisi
ana and Texas and sends it to customers as far
north as Buffalo, New York, and then eastward
into Maine and Massachusetts.
Natural gas, as it comes from the well, con
tains many products which are not desirable when
the gas is used for heating and cooking. Among
them are natural gasoline, propane and butane,
and a somewhat similar material called ethane.
The Tennessee Gas Transmission Company has
built a plant at Gabe, Kentucky, which takes these
components out of the gas stream. They are then
sent by another pipeline to the Doe Run plant.
a distance of sixty miles. At Doe Run, these ma
terials are separated and are either sold as such or
used as a raw material for our own m.anufacturing
processes.
Mathieson Hydrocarbon Chemical Corporation
was organized jointly in 1950 by the Tennessee
Gas Transmission Company and the former Math
ieson Chemical Corporation.
On November 28, 1951, Mathieson Hydrocar
bon Chemical Corporation was merged with
Mathieson Chemical Corporation. The Doe Run
plant occupies an 1800-acre site that is ideal for
chemical industry. The Ohio River provides wa
ter for the plant and makes it possible to ship
by barge. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad
and several trucking lines serve the plant. It is
close to markets which need the products.
Principal products made at the plant are
ethylene oxide, which is used in the manufacture
of synthetic detergents and other chemical prod
ucts, and ethylene glycol, the principal ingredient
of permanent-type automotive anti-freezes. The
ethylene glycol from this plant is shipped by tank
car and barge to canning plants in other cities
where the anti-freeze formulation is prepared and
put up under the Olin Mathieson brand label
"U.S.I. Permanent.”
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