[2] The company was created in 2004, as part of French oil major Total's restructuring of its chemicals business, and floated on the Paris stock exchange in May 2006.

[1] Arkema was created when French oil major Total restructured its chemicals business in 2004, but the company's roots go back many years.

Orkem's petrochemicals, styrenics, fertilizers and acrylics businesses were integrated into Atochem, while specialties (resin and paint) moved to Total.

In response to fears of redundancy and to protests from employees at a number of production sites, the trade unions negotiated, with the Arkema management, industrial and social guarantees as well as support measures designed to protect the rights of employees should the Klesch group implement redundancies following their take-over of the vinyl products activities.

[18] Following the sale, Arkema reorganized its activities into three business segments: High Performance Materials, Industrial Specialties and Coating Solutions.

[19] 2015 : Purchase of Bostik from Total S.A.[20][21] The company also joined CJ Group of South Korea to invest in the manufacture of L-methionine in Malaysia.

This segment gathers together four main product lines: specialty polyamides, fluoropolymers (PVDF), molecular sieves for filtration and adsorption and organic peroxides.

Brands include Rilsan (polyamide 11), Luperox (Organic Peroxide), Kynar (PVDF), Siliporite (Molecular Sieves).

Includes thiochemicals (for animal nutrition, gas natural odorant), fluorochemicals (for refrigeration, air conditioning, blowing agent for insulating foam) and hydrogen peroxide (pulp and textile bleaching, chemical synthesis, water treatment).

[30] Arkema has 13 research centers worldwide: 7 in France (Lacq; Serquigny; Cerdato; Carling; Genay; Pierre-Benite; and Verneuil), three in the United States (Cary, North Carolina; Wauwatosa, Wisconsin; and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania) and two in China (Shanghai and Changshu).

Arkema said it would be unable to prevent an explosion at the plant, after refrigeration equipment failed that kept temperature sensitive organic peroxides cold.

[37] Total, Elf Aquitaine and Arkema were investigated by the EU Commission for involvement in an illegal supply, sales and pricing cartel in the hydrogen peroxide and sodium perborate markets.