Kwinana-headquartered major private manufacturer Coogee Chemicals has had another solid year, lifting revenue, profit and assets, as it eyes an expansion of its operation in the US.
Kwinana-headquartered major private manufacturer Coogee Chemicals has had another solid year, lifting revenue, profit and assets, as it eyes an expansion of its fledgling operation in the US.
Owned by Gordon Martin and his family, Coogee's revenue grew 11 per cent to $377 million for the year ending June 30, from $337 million in the previous corresponding year, pushing net profit to $29.1 million, up more than 16 per cent from $25 million in the prior period.
Net assets grew to $445.7 million, up 4 per cent from $430 million in 2024.
The chemical manufacturing and bulk storage and handling major sits at 32nd on the Business News Data & Insights list of private companies when ranked by net assets.
Its chemicals supply division – the largest arm of the global operator – brought in $259 million from customer contracts in FY25, up from $244 million previously.
Its terminal services and transport divisions also swelled to $73 million and $41 million, respectively, as did its workforce, which now sits at 423 employees.
At the end of June, Coogee had $1.6 million in cash and equivalents in the bank, which had fallen from $7.4 million held at the end of June 2024.
Coogee paid out $10 million in dividends for the financial year, in line with last year, with the Martin family owning more than 93 per cent of the company.
The Kwinana-based business has a long-running presence on the industrial strip south of Perth, alongside operations on the eastern seaboard, Malaysia and the United States.
Coogee produces chemicals for the mineral processing, agriculture and industrial sectors, and also operates bulk fuel and liquid dangerous goods terminals.
Its Kwinana and Port Hedland terminals handle sulphuric acid and caustic soda mainly destined for the state’s miners, alongside a range of other hydrocarbons and solvents.
Major fuel customers such as Ampol and Exxon Mobil use Coogee’s shore-side terminal services which facilitate the import and storage of fuel, among other operations.
Industrialist Gordon Martin – worth $595 million according to Business News’ Rich 100 – spearheaded Coogee’s growth after taking control of the company in the early 1970s.
Coogee is now steered by his son and executive chair Tim Martin, alongside chief executive Grant Lukey, who took on those roles in 2015.
Tim Martin said their magnesium powder plant in Illinois was an “exciting part of the business that we’re trying to grow”.
“That's where the market is for us, and you need to be there to get traction with all the customers there," he told this masthead.
“We're a long way away [in Australia] and it becomes more cost prohibitive, and also, they're less comfortable buying a critical product like this that goes into some pretty special kind of applications to source it from here.
“We're just getting past that kind of confidence threshold to push the button on scaling it up and operating out of the site we have in Illinois.
Mr Martin said the rallying gold price, another expected record harvest and a reasonably strong fuel market were driving throughput.
He said the weak lithium market and under-pressure pigment industry were a dampener, but that Coogee’s greatest concern was energy prices.
Mr Martin said Coogee’s joint venture Malaysian entity producing ferrous sulphate for various industries was on care and maintenance.
He said the Malaysian operation was a peripheral part of the business, with 99 per cent of Coogee’s revenue derived from its home soil operations.
“You've seen BHP Nickel West close, Alcoa is closed, the BP refinery closed, and that's for slightly different reasons, but they are all foundation customers that established the industry hub in Kwinana,” Mr Martin said.
“[Kwinana] is very successful and standard example of what it should look like if you're going to have a hub with related businesses efficiently using by-products, resources and energy.
“But getting long-term off-taker energy to support new business is very difficult, so we're still waiting for the government to act on some of the recommendations the DomGas report…that needs to flow through to some outcomes.”
Earlier this year, Australian Gold Reagents – of which Mr Martin sits on the board and Coogee has a 25 per cent interest – moved ahead with sodium cyanide expansion plan.
A positive final investment call was made to expand the production hub in Kwinana.
