LyondellBasell to close former A. Schulman plants in Massachusetts and Texas

LyondellBasell Industries is closing former A. Schulman Inc. plants in Massachusetts and Texas in moves that will cut almost 90 jobs.
The 68 layoffs at a compounding plant in Worcester, Mass., were included in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN) notice filed with the state for the week of July 19. The first effective date for the layoffs is Sept. 30.
An LBI spokeswoman confirmed the closing of the Houston blending and cleaning plant — which employed almost 20 — in an email to Plastics News.
“These are difficult decisions we do not take lightly but are part of our overall integration plan to align and consolidate the Advanced Polymer Solutions business,” she said. “We continue to carefully analyze our business and develop a strong APS organization committed to delivering high-quality products and customer service.”
The spokeswoman added that production from Worcester will be transferred to a plant in Evansville, Ind., “as part of a broader corporate integration effort.” The Worcester site made color concentrates and materials based on engineering resins.
The Houston site blended wide-spec polyolefins and cleaned post-industrial plastic waste. That work also will be moved to Evansville, the spokeswoman said.
Houston-based LBI acquired Fairlawn, Ohio-based Schulman for $2.25 billion in early 2018. That deal added 54 Schulman production sites to LBI’s own 18. At the time, market watchers said that it was unlikely that all 72 sites would remain open.
In late 2018, Plastics News asked Jim Guilfoyle — executive vice president of LBI’s Advanced Polymer Solutions unit, which includes the former Schulman business — about possible plant closings. He declined to comment on specific locations, but said that the unit “has a lot of integration ahead of us, but we also have platforms for growth.”
Guilfoyle at that time pointed out that LyondellBasell planned to achieve $150 million in cost synergies from the Schulman acquisition through several steps, including better logistics and procurement.
“We’re still working through the plants,” he said. “We need to optimize the footprint. We’re looking at LyondellBasell sites as well as Schulman.”
Schulman acquired the 120,000-square-foot Worcester plant in 2012 when it paid $36.5 million for ECM Plastics Inc., a maker of custom compounds and color and additive concentrates. ECM employed 140 at that time and had annual sales of $40 million.
Market sources said the Houston plant was owned by Matrixx Group before that business was acquired in 2007 by private equity firm Wind Point Partners. Wind Point then combined Matrixx with other plastic materials companies to form Citadel Plastics, which Schulman bought in 2015.