Mission Statement

Seadrift Coke LP is committed to providing our customers with a product of high value, and to trading equitably with our suppliers. Our employees and the community can expect nothing less than adherence to the highest standards for safety, environmental impact and professional conduct.

Commitment to Quality & Customer Service

In October of 1996 we were proud to announce our plant’s registration to the ISO 9002 quality program. Then, in 2002 we successfully transitioned to the newer ISO 9001-2000 standard. The ISO process provides us with the framework and the discipline to meet or exceed our customers’ expectations and commits us to continuous improvement—essential for remaining a world class operation. The strengths that fuel the process of producing a consistently highly valued product are many, but they can be grouped into three categories:

Plant
Seadrift, one of the newest needle coke plants in the world, enjoys a number of advantages due to its location on the mid-Texas coast. Among these are the availability of water transportation for feedstock, liquid by-products and coke; an abundant well-educated workforce; and proximity to many Gulf Coast refineries for feedstock supply. Of equal importance is the fact that Seadrift’s design was specifically geared to the production of premium needle coke. Our equipment and process technology permits adaptation to a wide variety of feedstocks and the process variables necessary to ensure consistent, high quality material.

People
We believe that our strongest asset is our people. Our employees are motivated, well trained, experienced and dedicated to identifying and implementing innovative solutions to the problems that crop up during the life of any process plant. Underscoring the attitude is Seadrift’s emphasis on the importance and worth of employee involvement in all phases of the work environment. Improvements resulting from employee input are innumerable and have led to better productivity, quality and safety. Seadrift people are vitally concerned about and heavily involved in the local community. As individuals, they contribute and volunteer for many levels of community services. Seadrift Coke is a member of the Clean Texas 2000 Program, committed to the continued conserving of resources, eliminating waste and protecting the environment.

Focus
Several factors set Seadrift Coke apart in the world among needle cokers. We see ourselves as a one-product plant: a needle coke plant. And, we are a stand-alone operation; unfettered by the demands and constraints of the typical oil refinery and minimizing all non-coke distractions. Thus the efforts of all employees can be focused on and channeled into the production of consistent quality coke suitable for high performance electrodes. As an example, this allows feedstocks and operating conditions to be selected solely for their ability to influence coke quality. Our plant laboratory evaluates and screens all potential feedstocks using sophisticated carbonization and microscopy technologies.

Plant History

In the late 1970s, Airco Carbon, a division of the BOC Group, decided to construct a needle coke plant to support graphite electrode production. Construction began in the summer of 1982 and was completed in the fall of 1983. In 1988, Airco Carbon became part of the Carbide/Graphite Group, Inc. (C/G) in a management-led leveraged buyout. In 1994, the Seadrift plant was restructured as a limited partnership, Seadrift Coke, L.P. In July, 2003, the plant was purchased by the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) to meet increasing demand for their premium quality needle coke. Our name was changed to 76 Seadrift Coke, LLC. 2005 saw the plant purchased by a private investor and assume our current name of Seadrift Coke, L.P. Seadrift Coke is the world’s only stand-alone needle coke plant, considered “state of the art” and unique among cokers worldwide due to our three drum, three-step process. After an expansion in 1998, this plant’s current capacity approaches 180,000 metric tons per year. The Seadrift plant is almost entirely self-sufficient, requiring only supplies of feedstock and fresh water to run continuously. In addition to calcined needle coke, the operation produces fuel gas, naphtha, gas oil and electricity as by-products. During normal operations Seadrift Coke employs roughly 100 people plus a varying number of contract personnel. We operate the plant continuously through the use of rotating twelve-hour shifts.

Our Future

We are confident that the worldwide demand for graphite electrodes will continue to grow as increasing numbers of electric arc furnaces are brought online around the world. We have committed a substantial amount of capital and other resources to modernize our coking process to meet that demand. As a result of this forward-looking commitment we believe our facility is well positioned for the future. Further, we generally have several hundred thousand barrels of feedstock either in storage or in transit at any given time. Although the cost of such inventories is not to be discounted, this serves as a shield against disruptions in supply from such things as poor quality, refinery outages or transportation delays as well as upward spikes in prices. We at Seadrift Coke feel confident about our future and about our ability to provide our customers with a consistent, top-quality product.

Health & Safety

Seadrift Coke is committed at the highest levels to a management philosophy of maximizing profits through controlling and minimizing losses. In this context, "losses" encompass property damage, personal injury or illness, a reduction of product quality, or a lower level of productivity. These losses can be brought about by failure to properly follow work procedures, inadequately maintained fire prevention systems, disregard for occupational health issues, noncompliance with regulatory codes, a lack of security, or through other management deficiencies.

If we are successful in this philosophy, we will necessarily operate a safe and healthful plant with lower costs and optimum efficiency. Thus we contend that it is not enough to do a job the "safe" way, but rather that it should be done the "right" way, with risks carefully analyzed and appropriate preventive measures taken before a loss occurs.

Every Seadrift employee is a risk manager with an opportunity to exercise a degree of control over both personal factors and job factors which, if not controlled, could result in a loss (accident or incident). If we fail to exercise this control, acts or conditions will almost certainly follow which will allow a loss to take place. These losses could have disastrous consequences in terms of the economic survival of our plant, human pain and suffering, or loss of life.

Since every Seadrift employee has a part in this overall philosophy, opportunity is provided for every employee to give input into our practices and policies of management. This "participative management" is a very positive aspect of our overall OMS program. Each employee therefore is expected to take part in the process of formally evaluating areas of our operations, setting standards high enough to truly minimize losses, and following through to live by those standards.

In practice the various OMS element teams are the avenue for this input. Our program has been audited by a team of plant people and, simply put, the program is working. The written standards and the audit and review processes now in place ensure that all aspects of the program will continue to function effectively. We are also continuing to improve the program in accordance with recommendations from the various elements and the steering committee.

Thus safety is an integral part of our management philosophy, with all employees having a meaningful part in the success of our business. The formal OMS program provides a measurement of the success of this philosophy, and helps to enforce the discipline essential for this success.

Process Description

Our three-step coking process consists of coking, drying and coke removal cycles. During the coking cycle decant oil feed is preheated, separated by fractionation and reheated to temperatures hot enough to induce an endothermic reaction. The green coke created during the coking cycle is then dried by passing superheated gasses through the green coke in the drying drum. This drying step reduces volatile matter and hardens the coke. High pressure water is used to remove or “cut” the coke from the drum. The green coke then undergoes a heat treatment process called calcining. It is fed through a 220-foot long rotary kiln at temperatures of approximately 2500°F. This calcining process is necessary for controlling coke density and for burning off any remaining volatiles in the coke. After calcining, the needle coke is cooled and conveyed to one of six storage silos. Our on-site laboratory continuously monitors the product by sampling and testing throughout all phases of the process prior to shipment. Shipments of calcined needle coke are made by rail, barge or truck.

Environmental

The goal of the Seadrift Coke L.P. environmental program is not only to maintain 100% compliance with applicable governmental and company standards but also to constantly seek means to minimize potential exposure to our employees, our neighbors, and the environment. A successful environmental program comes from (1) diligent, trained employees who understand the importance of environmental protection, (2) 100% compliance with all applicable federal and state environmental regulations, and (3) an ongoing process to identify, design and implement pollution prevention projects.