Coastal Chemical turns 50

Coastal Chemical Company celebrated its 50th Golden Anniversary this past week by throwing a party behind the main office on La. 14 in Abbeville.
What began as a two-person operation out of Revis Sirmon’s house in 1958 is now a $600 million, 500 employee company.
It’s one of the largest chemical companies that supplies production wells in the country.
The man who started the company is Abbeville’s own Revis Sermon, who was on hand at the anniversary party Wednesday.
He operated the company until 1988, and then sold it to his children, Becky Sirmon Joy and Johnny Sirmon, along with Jim Doyle.
Since then, Coastal Chemical has been purchased and sold by national companies and is now owned by Brenntag AG.
Sirmon is happy his company has grown into an nationwide company. “It gives my employees a better opportunity to grow,” he said.
While most of the credit goes to Sirmon for growing Coastal Chemical, he will not take all of the credit for the company’s success.
“It’s about having good employees,” Sirmon said. “The record shows I had loyal people. I rewarded them and gave them a chance to climb the ladder. They helped produce a great company.
“It is not often a company can stay in business for 50 years.”
One employee has been with Coastal Chemical for most of those 50 years.
Theresa Steen began working for Coastal Chemical 44 years ago when she was only 17 and just out of Abbeville High School. She is in charge of accounting at the main office in Abbeville.
What began a part-time job turned into a career.
“I love my job and the people here,” said Steen. “When I started, I didn’t think I would stay this long.”
Sirmon saw early in life that an easier way to make money in the oilfield is not in drilling but in production.
Sirmon and his wife began a mud company out of their house. He hustled up business in the mid 1950s while his wife kept the books.
But he noticed a trend where a drilling rig would provide him business for a month or two and then moved on. He saw that after a well is drilled, removing the gas from the ground took a lot longer than drilling for it. A production well could last 30 years.
The chemical, Glycol, was also used in the removal of gas from the ground and transferring it through pipelines.
Sirmon recognized that south Louisiana did not have a local distributor of Glycol, thus he and his wife became one. The Sirmons also sold chemicals to refineries in Louisiana.
The Sirmons first used a warehouse owned by Riviana Rice Mill to house the chemicals.
That was the beginning of Coastal Chemical Co, LLC .
Today, Coastal Chemical consists of four business units - process chemicals, fuel and lubes, production treating chemicals and N-SPEC-Pipeline Cleaning Service.
Each unit has a sales and technical department.
Coastal Chemical has offices in nine states, ranging from California to New Jersey.
“We owe a lot of our success to one man who started it,” said Coastal Chemical President Randy King.