At the beginning of the nineteenth century Welplaat was just an island in the mouth of two rivers: Botlek and Oude Maas. The name of the island refers to its soil structure: quicksand. When you dug a hole in the ground, the sand would rise from the bottom up to fill the hole just dug. Around 1830 the sandbank was made into a polder. Up to 1950 the polder was mainly used for farming. Later, the farms were replaced by industry.
In 1960 the then Koninklijke Nederlandse Zoutindustrie (KNZ) built a Chlor-Alkali Plant on the new land. This was the start of activities at the Botlek site. Soon, these activities expanded. Here is an overview up to the present day:
- 1960 KNZ builds a Chlor-Alkali Plant (CAB).
- 1965 Crop protection chemicals production (GBM) starts, later CPC (Crop Protection Chemicals)
- 1969 Akzo – KNZ merged into Akzo – start of Vinyl Chloride Monomer Plant (VCB) and Energy Supply Plant (EVB).
- 1974 Chlorine Recycling Plant is commissioned.
- 1983 start of production at Membrane Electrolysis Plant (MEB).
- 1984 Chlor-Alkali Plant is shut down and dismantled.
- May 1995 start building Metal Alkyls Europe Plant (MAE).
- 1998 development into Industrial Park. · 1998 CPC sold to Nufarm Ltd.
- 1999 chlorine capacity MEB expanded to 350,000 tons.
- January 1, 2000 VCB sold to Shin-Etsu
- October 2003 chlorine capacity of MEB expanded to 490,000 tons of chlorine a year.
- April 2004 start expansion of MEB to 622,000 tons