Intergulf Corporation and STC Industrial have joined forces to form CIRCON Environmental providing a complete range of liquids and solids waste management and product recovery services for the petroleum and petrochemical industries.
Intergulf Corporation and STC Industrial are both portfolio companies of Kinderhook Industries, LLC – a New York-based private equity firm with a sector focus on environmental services companies.
For three decades, Intergulf Corporation has been a Texas-based industrial liquids management business serving generators of both hazardous and non-hazardous liquid waste and co-product streams. Its steady expansion in services with new technology won it high marks for procuring, transporting, blending, treating and processing petroleum and petrochemical waste streams to repurpose those materials as alternative fuel products.
STC Industrial, headquartered in South Carolina, has a long history of successfully introducing proprietary waste extraction technology and creating innovative technologies to remove and transport liquid and solid residual waste from petroleum and petrochemical storage tanks. STC’s unique adaptation of advanced engineering concepts distinguished its work in the removal, disposal and conversion of hazardous waste to alternate fuel products.
The STC-Intergulf merger will result in a broader range of services, a greater capacity to apply high-tech and novel processes, a geographic reach into all major U.S. refining centers, and a greater ability to help customers achieve their sustainability goals in a market eager to repurpose both non-hazardous and hazardous waste as alternate fuel products.
“CIRCON Environmental brings together two fine companies,” according to RobMichalik, a Managing Director at Kinderhook. “When we looked at the increase in capabilities and capacity coupled with the demands of a rapidly changing market, we realized the potential for growth a merger would create.”
Frank Iezzi, the current CEO of STC Industrial has been named Chief Executive Officer of CIRCON Environmental. Brandon Velek, long-time CEO of Intergulf, assumes the role of Board Chairman.
“These companies are 100 percent complementary,” observed Iezzi. “Merging them into CIRCON Environmental results in synergies for customers in every aspect of our business.” Added Velek, the merger is “an immediate strategy to give more than 400 customers new, cost-efficient solutions.”
A New Day. CIRCON Environmental will provide services from nine different facilities,most in the Gulf Coast petrochemical market and will be headquartered in LaPorte, TX, in facilities now occupied by Intergulf. From Northern Illinois to Southern Louisiana, it will bring together almost 400 employees delivering more than $170 million in annual services.
"CIRCON Environmental gives us a chance to align with an expanding market,” said Iezzi. “We’ll be able to reach more than 90 percent of the 13,500 chemical plants in the U.S., and stay on pace with our petroleum partners whose domestic production has risen by more than 60 percent since 2013.”
“For our customers,” he added, “ CIRCON Environmental means more choices, more innovation, and more efficiency while demonstrating their commitment to sustainability.”Board Chairman Velek noted that “the broader scope of services and the opportunity to serve a wider range of clients is exciting for our business and for our employees. Growth is good for all of us.”Investors in environmental services know “we’re leaving the days when a linear economy built profitable business models,” says Frank Iezzi. “Our shareholders know that we’ve moved and our market has moved. The circular economy where we reuse, recycle,convert waste to fuel – this is our future.”For that future, added Iezzi, “ CIRCON Environmental is more than a merger and more than a name. It’s a symbol of a new day and a better way to serve our clients.”
