Hundreds of jobs on the line. In the Grenoble region, the chemical industry is trembling after the announcement on Tuesday, September 10, of the placement in receivership of the Vencorex company by the Lyon court. “What we have been fearing since April has unfortunately come true”says Adrien Poirieux, representative in Isère for the National Federation of Chemical Industries (FNIC)-CGT. Vencorex, whose headquarters are in Saint-Priest (Rhône), in the Lyon region, and the main plant in Pont-de-Claix (Isère), near Grenoble, produces specialty isocyanates, derivative products used in paints and varnishes for the automotive, construction and electronics industries.
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The Vencorex plant in Pont-de-Claix is, with 450 employees, the main operator of the chemical platform which brings together players such as Air Liquide and Seqens, and works in conjunction with the neighboring chemical platform of Jarrie (Isère), in particular with Arkema to which it supplies salts and chlorine.
After having been regularly confronted with difficulties on the isocyanates market, particularly after the 2009 crisis, Vencorex has been experiencing a “market reversal”explains a management representative, who wished to remain anonymous. “For quite a few years now, the market has seen the arrival of Asian players”first and foremost Wanhua and Covestro, competing with Vencorex “both in production capacity, which has increased, and in prices, which have collapsed”.
Fear of a “domino effect”
Founded in 2002, Vencorex has been, since 2022, wholly owned by its historical co-founder, the Thai petrochemical company PTT Global Chemical, which bought its shares from the Swedish Perstorp. A shareholder far removed from local issues, whose unions highlight the lack of investment in the diversification of the very activities of the plant, positioned in the single product of isocyanates since the beginning.
Even if the shareholder has “regularly replenished the coffers”according to the management representative, and despite a savings plan of several tens of millions of euros initiated by management in 2023, this time will have been one too many: it is the company itself which declared to the court its cessation of payments, requesting the protection of the court for a period of six months.
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The interconnection between the different companies of the two chemical platforms in the Grenoble region, which bring together around 1,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs, makes the unions fear a “Effet to the master.” Companies supply each other with raw materials or derivatives, and some employees move easily between companies. According to several employees interviewed, Vencorex has suffered many departures in recent months, at all hierarchical levels, “to the point that some teams could not ensure the safety of the workshop”testifies a former Vencorex employee.
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