A facility that has been producing asphalt in Union County since 2009 is now manufacturing products that preserves asphalt pavements.
Southeast Emulsions will celebrate the grand opening of its Union Terminal with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. Thursday followed by a barbecue luncheon. The terminal, which is located at 1404 Jonesville Highway, Union, opened in 2009 as a liquid asphalt production facility operated by Sloan Construction. At the beginning of 2012, however, the terminal became part of Southeast Emulsions with the construction of an emulsions manufacturing facility.
“We’ve been here since 2008 when we started construction on the terminal,” Facility Manager Matt Hogan said Tuesday morning. “We began production in 2009 when we opened the terminal to receive liquid asphalt by rail.
“At the beginning of this year, we changed from Sloan Construction to Southeast Emulsions with the construction of an emulsions manufacturing facility,” he said. “Sloan is still our sister company, but Southeast Emulsions is part of Barrett Industries.”
The company’s website describes Southeast Emulsions as a “vertically integrated pavement preservation solution provider supplying pavement preservation products and the services to apply them.” Those products and services “are used to maintain interstates, state highways, city streets, county roads, airports, airstrips, and all other road surfaces.”
Southeast Emulsions Regional Sales Manager Alan Harrison described asphalt emulsions as a “water-based system that goes down in thin layers on roadways to seal cracks and reduce the aging of asphalt pavements.” He said the Union Terminal will manufacture those products which will be used by another company owned by Barrett Industries as well as other companies in the pavement preservation industry.
“We are in the business of the manufacturing and application of products for pavement preservation,” Harrison said Tuesday morning. “We have a company, Strawser Construction Inc., that does the applications and we manufacture these products for them and for sale to outside companies.”
Harrison said the liquid asphalt side of the facility will continue to produce asphalt which will be used by Sloan Construction for roads and other paving projects in the Upstate and Midlands. The pavement preservation products produced on the emulsions side of the facility will be marketed in those and other areas, though Harrison said production will initially be on a small scale with plans for future expansion.
“We’re starting small, we hope to do 2.5 million gallons this year,” Harrison said. “That’s only the beginning, we hope to grow beyond that.”
Even though production will be small at first, it will generate new jobs. The terminal currently employs a staff of three, but Hogan says he plans to hire at least three more employees over the next 18 months.
For more information about Southeast Emulsions and attending Thursday’s grand opening, call Alan Harrison at 864-505-3028.
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