History

American Borate Company (ABC) is a privately held corporation headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Since 1981, the company has marketed borates from Turkey and until 1990 was a wholly owned subsidiary of Owens Corning Fiberglas. During our 33+ years in operation, we have purchased over 4,000,000 metric tons of products and sold to customers throughout North America.

In 1976, Owens Corning purchased American Borate Company from Tenneco and maintained corporate offices in Las Vegas. Ten years later, ABC moved the headquarters to Virginia Beach and continued to import and sell Turkish borates. In 1990, ABC was purchased from Owens Corning, and Jim Sparks a 21 year OC employee, left the company to be part of the new ABC venture and continue his role as president. He continues to lead our staff of over 30 employees today.

ABC has become the largest North American representative of Turkish borates. Turkey has 72 percent of the world’s known borate reserves and supplies nearly 50 percent of the world’s boron demand. Since 1998, we have expanded our “hand-selected” distributor network to service increased capacity. The distributor sites ensure ABC can service any size customer from one pallet to several thousand tons. 

To bring the company story full circle, ABC now lists Owens Corning, once its parent company, as a key customer. We maintain a trusted partnership with Owens Corning, like all of our clients, to explore new and meaningful ways to use borates today, tomorrow and beyond.