Permanente Metals Corporation (PMC) is best known for having managed the Richmond Shipyards in Richmond, California, owned by one of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser's many corporations, and also engaged in related corporate activities. These four of the seven west coast Kaiser Shipyards were known for their construction of Liberty ships.
The company was also a major producer of magnesium during World War II. To make use of its major product, powdered magnesium, PMC also developed and supplied an incendiary bomb mixture of magnesium powder, asphalt, gasoline and others components (known as goop, with similar characteristics to napalm); 17,000 short tons of goop-filled bombs were used in World War II (approximately eight percent of the total tonnage of incendiaries that were dropped during that conflict). Permanente ranked 42nd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.