The El Dorado Rotary Club met Monday, and Senior-Site Manager for LANXESS Steffen Kahlert spoke about the local and global operations of the international company.
Kahlert, who is originally from Germany, where LANXESS was founded and is based, said the company started out as an automotive product manufacturer. Now, LANXESS employs over 40,000 people across 33 countries, paying more than $35 million in yearly salaries and doing $6.8 billion in sales just last year, he said.
LANXESS is a global supplier of specialty chemicals and products derived from them. At their three plants in Union County, their focus is on bromine production and products derived from it; but other products they offer range from agri-chemicals to thermoplastics.
The local plants — known as the South, West and Central plants — all together employ nearly 500 local residents. Kahlert said both bromine and phosphorus based products are made locally.
LANXESS decided to open the local plants because of vast brine reserves under the ground in the region that came to exist during the prehistoric period. LANXESS drills about 7,000 feet under the ground to pump out the brine, which bromine is then extracted from.
“This is nothing that we really had a choice (in),” Kahlert said. “It really has to do with geology.”
Bromine, he explained, is used in products like flame retardants, chemical reaction intermediates and pesticides. He said he expects production of bromine products to be able to continue locally so long as the element remains available; he noted that the south Arkansas region’s high-concentrated salt brine deposits are some of the largest anywhere in the world and said the company pays about $10 million per year in brine royalties for land use agreements with the region’s landowners.
LANXESS is also currently working with Standard Lithium, which has a pilot plant at the South Plant where an experimental process for extracting lithium from brine is being tested. Kahlert said the two companies currently have a Memorandum of Understanding about the pilot plant, and should tests on the new lithium extraction process be successful, the two companies will partner on the business that can be derived in the new market.
“This gives us the opportunity to develop a process before we go through the investment, and also we understand the process much better,” Kahlert said. “We do not make any money through this yet. … This is the prep work to go into a big investment.”
LANXESS is well known locally for their community involvement. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has put some of those activities on hold since local community organizations cannot hold events, many residents have likely met their share of LANXESS employees as they volunteer at various events and nonprofits around the county.
“I was surprised myself,” Kahlert said. “We are spending about $130,000 every year in about 60 different organizations and events.”
An ongoing project LANXESS sponsors are yearly donations to school districts in the community for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.
“We give local schools in the area about $50,000 for several projects to improve opportunities for STEM education,” Kahlert said.
He noted that while maintenance technician and operator positions are easy to fill with local workforce talent, the company has had difficulty at times hiring some engineering positions. One way they’ve found success in hiring for those jobs, he said, is finding workers with connections to the community.
“It is a small town, and people who are making quite a bit of money try to find locations where they have more opportunities — big cities, especially if it comes to highly-skilled young employees,” he said. “Our challenge to handle this is now we are looking for more experienced people who have any kind of relation to the area … or they have hobbies where we say this area is ideal to this hobby — say, horse riding, hunting, if people are interested in this.”
In all, LANXESS’s capital investment in Union County has been in the $35-$45 million range. They pay about $5 million in taxes each year locally as well, Kahlert said.
“Finance wise, there’s quite a big impact,” he said.