Plant Expansions

German Injection moulding manufacturer, Arburg, has started the expansion of its US headquarters in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, thus providing an extra 23,000 sqft of space, or over 80% to the size of the existing building to make more room for set up and acceptance testing of complete turnkey automation projects, customised…

German machinery supplier KraussMaffei Berstorffis planning to build a new plant for extrusion technology. Last month, the company signed a rental contract with committee reservation with VGP, a European project developer for commercial real estate, for an approximately 55,000 sq m production hall and office complex. Completion of the plant…

DuPont Transportation & Industrial and ExxonMobil Chemical have jointly developed the new Santoprene thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) for automotive corner mould seals. By replacing traditional organic slip additives with DuPont’s engineered silicone-based additives, the two companies formulated a next-generation Santoprene TPV platform with improved bonding to ethylene propylene diene monomer (EDPM) rubber substrates and a lower…

Germany-headquartered chemicals company, BASF is opening new Footwear Development Centres in the US (Wyandotte, Michigan) and Thailand; and is also launching a Footwear Innovation Centre in Taiwan in 2020. The company also recently expanded its Footwear Development Centre in Italy. Bringing together a dedicated team of process engineers, footwear specialists…

Thailand based polypropylene (PP) manufacturer, HMC Polymers is planning to construct a fourth PP plant at its Map Ta Phut site, Rayong Province Thailand, bringing its total PP capacity to over 1 million tonnes and maintaining position as Southeast Asia’s largest PP producer. Further, HMC has entered into a License…

Australia headquartered global packaging company, Amcor has entered into an agreement with US private equity firm, Kohlberg & Company, for the sale of three former Bemis plants located in the UK and Ireland for US$ 394 million.  Collectively these three plants generate annual sales of approximately US$170 million from the sale of flexible packaging for certain…

Swiss chemical firm Clariant Masterbatches is ramping up its support for packaging industry customers in Asia Pacific by creating a Regional Packaging Centre (RPC) in it’s Phanthong manufacturing facility in Thailand. The RPC is part of a Clariant programme to provide a higher level of service to the packaging industry…

India’s Polyplex, which manufactures biaxially oriented polyester (BOPP) film for packaging, electrical and other industrial applications with facilities in India, Thailand and Turkey, has set up an arm in Indonesia. A new company named PT Polyplex Films Indonesia was set up in 2017 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Polyplex…

Danish plastic company Inter Primo A/S has acquired British-owned Essentra Extrusion BV, located in Buitenpost, the Netherlands, to strengthen the company’s position in the European market. With the purchase of Essentra, Inter Primo becomes one of Northern Europe’s largest companies in customised plastic extrusion and can continue its specialisation, development…

Chevron Phillips (CP) Chemical Company, the US petrochemical company jointly owned by Chevron Corporation and Phillips 66, has made a bid to acquire Canada’s Nova Chemicals for more than US$15 billion including debt, according to a Reuters report. The report says that Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co,…