Two Plants Will Sell You American Hydroquinone

For twenty-eight straight years, the plant on Goodyear Drive in Niagara Falls told the federal government the same thing.

Six chemicals. Aniline, diphenylamine, hydroquinone, phenol, o-toluidine, o-xylene. The same six in its 1997 filing, the same six in its 2024 filing, nothing added and nothing dropped in between.

Thursday morning, the people who run that recipe arrived for their shift and were told the plant is closing.

"Who still makes this molecule in America once Goodyear stops?"

The filing landed the same day. Goodyear's 8-K says the board approved a plan on September 29 to close the chemical plants at Niagara Falls, New York and Bayport, Texas, that the plan "includes approximately 85 job reductions", and that the company expects pre-tax charges of $55m to $75m, of which about $30m is cash. Roughly $35m of it books in the third quarter. The payoff is $15m to $20m a year of Americas segment operating income starting in 2027.

What the 8-K does not contain is a product, a grade, or a tonne. A whole paragraph of dollars for two plants, and not one word about what comes out of them.

So we went and looked.

What Goodyear Kept Was the Tell

Go back eleven months.

On November 3 2025, Goodyear announced it had closed the sale of its chemical business to an affiliate of Gemspring Capital for $650m, about $580m of it cash at closing.

Houston went. Beaumont went. The research office in Akron went.

Two things stayed, and the release is precise about them: "Goodyear retains its Chemical facilities in Niagara Falls, New York, and Bayport, Texas, and its rights to the products produced at these facilities."

Rights to the products. That phrase is doing a lot of work, and it is the reason the pair came off the table.

333 days after that sale closed, the same company approved shutting both of them down.