Cabot to close West Virginia carbon black plant

Boston, Massachusetts - Cabot Corp. is to close its carbon black manufacturing facility in Waverly, West Virginia. The company expects manufacturing operations to cease in March 2008 with customer shipments from the facility continuing through the middle of 2008.

The decision to close the facility was driven by restructuring in the tyre manufacturing industry. As tyre plants have closed in North America and opened in Asia, said Cabot, it has to adjust North American carbon black capacity to maintain its competitiveness. Cabot is in the process of debottlenecking several of its carbon black manufacturing facilities in North America to continue to fully meet customer requirements.

Cabot expects the closure plan will result in a pre-tax charge to earnings of approximately $22 million over the next two years with approximately $8 million of this amount expected to be recorded during fiscal year 2007. Of the $22 million, the net cash outlays anticipated to be paid over the next two years are approximately $4 million.

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Press release from Cabot