With the acquisition of the remaining 50% interest in Chrome International South Africa (CISA) previously held by its joint venture partner Sentrachem, German specialty chemical company Lanxess has gained full control of the production of sodium dichromate at the Newcastle site in the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal.

The production plant, which came on stream in 1999, has an annual capacity of 70,000 tons of sodium dichromate.

"Sodium dichromate is the principal raw material used in the production of chrome tanning materials for the leather industry at our facilities in South Africa and Argentina. This acquisition is thus of considerable significance to us, even though it is a fairly small-scale transaction," said Dr Bernhard Wehling, head of Lanxess’  Leather Business Unit.

The business unit has a further production plant for chrome chemicals in Zárate, Argentina and the chrome compounds manufactured at the two sites are used not only for leather chemicals, but also by Lanxess’  Inorganic Pigments (IPG) Business Unit for the production of chrome oxide green pigments.

"By acquiring the interest held by The Dow Chemical Company subsidiary Sentrachem, Lanxess has complete control of the value chain, from the chrome ore extracted from the mine in Rustenburg right through to the leather chemicals and pigments. This makes us more flexible, safeguards our know-how in chrome chemistry for the future and reinforces our integrated production structure for leather chemicals in South Africa," explained Dr Wehling.