INSTITUTE, W.Va. — BayerCrop Science announced plans to sell its Kanawha County industrial park to Dow Chemical subsidiary Union Carbide.
Bayer, which purchased the park from Aventis CropScience in 2002, aims to remain a tenant at the park instead of operating it.
“Without additional production capacity, Bayer CropScience does not have the critical mass needed to make continued ownership of the site economically viable,” said Bayer’s industrial park head Jim Covington.
The company’s manufacturing presence at the park has decreased since a 2008 explosion killed two workers. Bayer decided later to no longer produce and store the dangerous chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Institute facility.
Union Carbide plans to fully take over plant utilities, emergency response and security by mid-2016.
Bayer plans to continue operating a thiocarb production unit at the park.
“We recently have made significant investment in this unit in order to meet ongoing demand for our Larvin crop protection product,” Covington said in a news release.
Some 150 of the industrial park’s 500 workers are employed by Bayer. Covington said most of the job cuts there will be handled through retirements and voluntary separations.