Black is always the color of choice for Cabot Corp. The specialty chemicals and performance materials company ranks among the world's top producers of carbon black, a reinforcing and pigmenting agent used in tires, inks, cables, and coatings. Cabot also holds its own as a maker of fumed metal oxides such as fumed silica and fumed alumina, used as anti-caking, thickening, and reinforcing agents in adhesives and coatings. Other products include inkjet colorants, aerogels (a synthetic material derived from a gel), and a specialty fluid (cesium formate) for oil and gas drilling. It also makes thermoplastic concentrates and compounds (masterbatch products) used by the plastics industry.