Britain's $1.2 billion Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., already one of the world's biggest chemical producers, last week announced an expansion program such as Britain has rarely seen. I.C.I. plans to spend $364 million over the next six or seven years to expand present plants or build new ones to make everything from chlorine to nylon and Dacron-like Terylene. London was also buzzing over the company's jump into titanium. I.C.I, will gamble $10 million on a new factory, hoped to move into the market with an initial annual production of 3,000,000 Ibs. of the scarce wonder metal.
From Salt to Zippers. The huge expansion program, to be financed by the biggest industrial bond and stock issue in British history, was typical of I.C.I. The company has been booming from the day it was born in 1926, until now it controls a network of plants and sales offices in 19 countries around the world (more than 100 plants, 110,000 workers in Britain alone), makes 12,000 products from table salt to fertilizer and bulletproof gas tanks. In 1952 the company's gross sales hit $774 million, its gross profits more than $100 million. The tally for 1953 will be even better, enough for a record 15% dividend to I.C.I.'s more than 250,000 stockholders.
I.C.I, has had to grew big. The company was formed out of bitter experience in World War I with the specific job of making Britain self-sufficient in chemicals. At that time, Germany dominated the field. When war started, Britain imported most of its nitrates, had no synthetic nitrate production; its dyestuffs were so poor that the first khaki uniforms soon turned out purple or a bright target yellow. Britain muddled through with U.S. and South American help. But to make sure it would never happen again, I.C.I, was formed in 1926 by merging the four biggest companies−the British Dyestuffs Corp. for dyes, Brunner, Mond & Co. for nitrates and ammonia soda products, United Alkali Co. for alkalis, and Nobel Industries Ltd. for explosives.
By pooling their assets and know-how, the four firms built I.C.I, into an industrial giant by the beginning of World War II, and Britain had most of the chemicals it needed. With the funds and know-how to expand, I.C.I, turned its Billingham plant into the world's biggest chemical complex with 5 square miles of factories spewing out 2,000,000 tons of chemical products a year. Billingham made everything from fertilizers to sulphuric acids, annually turned out 100,000 tons of synthetic high-octane gas from coal and creosote oil. I.C.I.'s alkali division reached bulk production of the plastic polyethylene the day the Nazis marched into Poland. In the metals division, new plants made fuel tanks for planes, periscope tubes for submarines, 60 different types of ammunition. Other divisions boosted production, and I.C.I.'s researchers added their bit with such things as Gamma Benzene Hexachloride, a highly effective insecticide considered better than DDT, and Paludrine, a quinine substitute considered more effective than atabrine.