Gulf oil spill sparks boom at Cooley

LINE OF DEFENSE: Louisiana-based American Pollution Control Corp. deploys oil booms off the Alabama coast to contain the oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The material for the booms is made by the Cooley Group. /
LINE OF DEFENSE: Louisiana-based American Pollution Control Corp. deploys oil booms off the Alabama coast to contain the oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The material for the booms is made by the Cooley Group. /

In a typical year, the Cooley Group would churn out between 30,000 and 40,000 linear yards of a membrane the company calls Coolthane, a highly durable material designed to contain hazardous spills.
But this is not a typical year.
For the last two months, the Pawtucket manufacturer’s factory on Esten Avenue has cranked out 20,000 to 25,000 linear yards a week for customers that in turn are assembling the membrane into miles upon miles of floating oil booms.
The final destination: the massive oil spill that is fouling the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico.
And with more than 1 million gallons of oil estimated to be leaking every day from an underwater well since an oil rig exploded and sank in April, the orders keep coming.
Cooley, which employs about 200 people at its headquarters in Pawtucket and plants in Cranston and in South Carolina, has shifted to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week schedule to handle the increased demand.
Meanwhile, the privately held company said it doubled its 2009 sales figures in the first five months of this year.
“This has become a top priority,” said Darius Shirzadi, Cooley’s product manager for engineered membranes.
The manufacturer now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of profiting from the tragedy in the Gulf, where the oil slicks threaten aquatic life and the livelihood of countless residents.
“This has been good for business,” Shirzadi acknowledged. “But obviously it’s a horrible situation, probably one of the biggest environmental disasters this country has ever seen. It could be never-ending. It could go on for months and years.”
Cooley certainly isn’t the only company benefiting from the increased demand for oil booms as workers struggle to contain the spreading plumes.
In a rush to rein in the oil spill early on, the oil company BP hired contractors who deployed readily available booms made from inexpensive vinyl manufactured in China and elsewhere. The problem, according to Cooley: Most vinyl booms aren’t designed for long-term use, leading to failures. “It’s not meant for anything more than small scale,” Shirzadi said. “They call it a ‘throwaway’ boom. It’s being used much further from shore than it should, for longer periods of time. That’s why you’re seeing it wash up on shore or floating out to sea.”
Cooley said its material is different, made of a reinforcing mesh that’s sandwiched between two thermoplastic urethane layers that are bonded together by heat.
The membrane is formulated to endure UV rays, oil and dispersants. Shirzadi said the material is five times more durable than vinyl. Still, it’s only about a 1/16th of an inch thick and very flexible.
“The Cooley product could sit in the water for weeks, months, even years,” he said, citing some of the company’s booms that have been used for more than two decades.
Although they won’t divulge the price of the membrane, Cooley officials acknowledge that customers pay for the durability.
For every $1 an oil-boom manufacturer would spend on the vinyl material, Cooley’s customers can expect to pay $5 or $6 for Coolthane. But because of the failure rates of the booms, Shirzadi said he has heard that BP and the U.S. Coast Guard are taking a harder look at the materials that have been deployed.
In the meantime, Coolthane continues to spool out of the Cooley plant on Esten Avenue in 5- or 6-foot-wide orange sheets – orange because it needs to be visible in the water – that can be as long as 5,000 yards, or about 2.8 miles.
Cooley has been producing various types of polymer materials for decades. The company started in 1926, making storefront awnings out of cotton fabrics. But Cooley has embraced new technology over the years, moving from cotton to polyvinyl chloride – otherwise known as PVC – to more innovative polymers today. That search for high-tech materials has kept the company ahead of the competition from companies in Asia, where some membranes can be mass-produced cheaply.
In fact, Cooley used to produce the same vinyl in the 1980s that is being manufactured by the overseas factories to make the cheaper booms now.
Because of the unprecedented amount of oil and chemical dispersants in the water along the Gulf Coast, Shirzadi said Cooley will soon run tests on the various materials being used to clean up the spill.
“Nobody’s really seen this before, and there’s a question mark about how these things will hold up,” he said. “We’re hoping that information will better help in the cleanup.”
Cooley said the unexpected demand for the Coolthane membrane is similar to the unexpected surge in sales the company experienced after the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. The company’s membranes were wildly popular among military contractors.
But those events had a measure of predictability about them.
Since the Gulf oil spill developed in April, the company has experienced surges in orders and then dips. The inconsistency has made planning difficult.
“It’s kind of an unknown,” Shirzadi. “It’s been hard for us to predict.”
Yet, Cooley’s six to eight core customers who have been ordering Coolthane have told the company that new booms will be needed for some time to come.
“We’ve heard months, maybe years,” Shirzadi said. “With the performance of the lower-end products, there seems to be a shift to want to use higher-end products. They’re more expensive, but they’re meant to be out there for longer.
“And it’s going to be a long-term cleanup,” he added. •

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