Orica (ORI)

Shares / Stock Code

ORI

Stock Exchange / Sharemarket

ax

The leading supplier of commercial explosives in the world, Orica Limited (ORI) is engaged in the manufacturing and supply of commercial explosives, specialty and industrial chemicals as well as plastics and decorative paints making it the largest chemical company both in Australia and New Zealand. The operations of Orica Limited are concentrated mainly in Australia, South East Asia, New Zealand, North America and Latin America. ORI was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on the 28th of November 1961. Its average annual revenue reaches approximately $5 billion out of its issued capital of $280 million. Its headquarters is located in Melbourne, Australia and to date; around 8,000 people are employed in the company. Orica Limited operates in four business segments: Orica Mining Services, Orica Consumer Products, Chemnet and Orica Chemical Services.

The Orica Mining Services provides services to mining, construction and quarrying sectors. This segment offers commercial explosives big industries in Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa, former Soviet Union, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East.

The Orica Consumer Products or the OCP is engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of famous and well-patronised consumer products for architectural maintenance, construction and home improvement.

Chemnet is the Orica's (ORI) solutions business for the chemical trading and distribution. Although Chemnet is headquartered in Australia, it operates mainly in China, Fiji, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Chile, Peru and New Zealand while Orica Chemical Services is in charge of supplying chemical technology services to mining chemical, water treatment as well as industrial chemical market. This is an Australian-based segment with operations concentrated in the UK and the US.

Orica Limited (ORI) Company History

In 1874, Jones, Scott and Co. found the Orica Limited (ORI). After then, Orica started creating explosives located at Deer Park near Victoria, in Australia. Orica Limited was sold to Nobel in order to merge with United Alkali Company, British Dyestuffs Corporation and Brunner Mond forming Imperial Chemical Industries.

The newly formed Imperial Chemical Industries from New Zealand and Australia was formed in order to coordinate every Australasian interests of Imperial Chemical Industries in the year 1928. After a long time, the company formed a new named company, ICI Australia in 1971.

In 1997, Vinyls Corporation was launched. This company was formed by the merging of ICI Australia and Auseon uniting Australian vinyls (PVC) under one business. The businesses that formed this one company were the Auseon's manufacturing facilities located at Mentine and Altona among ICI Australia's Laverton project and the Deer Park Compounding Facilitiy. Subsequently, US based Carpenter Technology Corporation had a deal with the ICI Australia purchasing its advanced ceramics mechanism and powders business.

Imperial Chemical Industries dissociated its 62.4% shareholdings in the company leading ICI Australia to become an independent Australasian corporation in 1997. With this incident, the company decided to change the name to Orica back in 1998.

To fully manufacture and market commercials to the Indian Markets, Orica had a partnership with ICI India back in the year 1999.