Shannon headquartered company Chemifloc, the largest producer of water treatment chemicals in Ireland, has completed a €5 million investment in new bulk liquid chemical storage facilities at Shannon Foynes Port Company’s largest port at Foynes, Co. Limerick.

Five new jobs will be created by Chemifloc, bringing total employment in the Shannon headquartered company to over 40 people. This latest investment brings to over €10 million Chemifloc’s investment in Shannon Foynes Port since it established bulk storage facilities there in 2005.

Chemifloc’s facility at Foynes Port is now the most advanced in the country and positions the company as it embarks on an expansion programme into new sectors including the electronics, pharmaceutical, dairy and manufacturing industries.

Fergal Lawless, Executive Director of Chemifloc said, "Chemifloc is a wholly Irish owned company specialising in water treatment systems to deliver drinking water to homes and businesses throughout the island of Ireland. Chemifloc products are also used to protect the environment by treating wastewater. We are now building on over 30 years of our specialist experience in the water treatment sector to identify new markets for our products and services. Expanding our capacity to handle bulk liquid materials is a natural evolution for us and meets a growing need for companies across Ireland."

Mr. Lawless added that Chemifloc has recently expanded into the export market and is now supplying customers in the UK and Eastern Europe with products manufactured at its Smithstown facility. "We are ambitious to grow the company and we want to continue to create new employment at our manufacturing site at Smithstown in Shannon and at our facility in Shannon Foynes Port", he said.

Dr. Edwin Roycroft, Technical Director at Chemifloc said, "Our investment in a new bulk storage facility in Shannon Foynes Port comes at a critical time. Many existing bulk storage facilities for liquid industrial chemicals are nearing the end of their usable life and this investment will ensure security of supply for liquid materials required by many of Ireland's leading industries including in the dairy, pharmaceutical, electronics and manufacturing sectors. With uncertainty created by Brexit it will benefit many companies to be able to access our bulk storage facility in Limerick rather than trucking the product from facilities in the UK".

Pat Keating, CEO at Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) welcomed the investment, saying, "Chemifloc’s significant investment at Foynes Port is another vote of confidence in SFPC and the facilities we have to offer. The Port Authority facilitates €7.6bn of trade per annum and we are positioning the port for further growth and large-scale inward investment. The port is in strong growth-mode and during 2016 alone, throughputs grew by 11% at our general cargo terminals. In order to facilitate this pace of growth and to enable investment like that from Chemifloc, we are maintaining a strong investment programme and, to that end, recently completed the €12m Phase 1 of our jetty expansion program at Foynes and preliminaries have already commenced for the €25m second phase."