All chemicals start their life as an oil fraction. ExxonMobil Chemical is specialized in the production of chemical building blocks for the plastics industry using starting materials from ExxonMobil's refineries or its own chemical plants.

The history of these operations goes back a long way. Actually, petrochemical operations are almost as old as the oil industry itself. The first specialized chemist employed by Standard Oil, the researcher Herman Frasch, developed a method of removing sulfur from kerosene, or lamp oil, as early as 1886. The first commercial application of a petrochemical product dates back to 1920 when isopropyl alcohol (IPA) came on the market, IPA is a product used in cosmetics.

In 1930, ExxonMobil also invented butyl rubber, and is currently its largest producer. As butyl is so impermeable to air one of its primary uses is for inner tubes.

Large scale

We have to look back to the sixties for the start of the now familiar large-scale petrochemical industry. This is when plastic started its unstoppable growth with one plastics factory being established after another. Different ExxonMobil Chemical petrochemical factory complexes were built in the Benelux, such as the Aromatics Plant next to the Esso refinery in the Botlek area of Rotterdam in 1965 and the production units for fluids (including solvents) at the Esso refinery in Antwerp.

No world without chemicals

The many producers in the chemical sector eventually brought about a radical change to our living environment. Most of us would find it hard to imagine a world without plastics. Over a period of less than fifty years, a wide range of wood, metal and stone implements have been replaced by their plastic counterparts. Plastic components are included in an increasing number of machines, buildings and vehicles. And the research continues, with even more and even better plastics arriving on the market. ExxonMobil is playing a leading role in these developments, as it did during the first years of the petrochemical industry.