Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

New Zealand: German building materials company Knauf has failed to get Fletcher Building's use of the 'Batts' trademark for building insulation thrown out on the grounds that it is a common name in general public use.

Justice Brendan Brown refused a request to revoke the trademark and said that the use of the word in the installation instructions on packaging didn't infringe trademark. "There is clearly a not insignificant degree of use of the words 'batt' and 'batts' to describe insulation in a generic, non-proprietary sense," Justice Brown said. "However, collectively this evidence is not of a quantity or a quality to cause me to be satisfied that the trademark has become a common name in general public use for pieces of fibrous insulation."

Knauf exported some of its Earthwool insulation to New Zealand in 2011, with packaging displaying the words 'batt' and 'batts' in the installation instructions, with sparked the litigation. Fletcher protested the use of its trademark word 'Batts' and Knauf subsequently claimed that the word had become generic to describe insulation.

The High Court case shows intense rivalry between the companies in New Zealand, where an estimated 15Mm² of insulation products are sold every year, most of it made from glass. Fletcher's subsidiary Tasman Insulation makes more than 7Mm² of insulation from recycled glass a year, sold under the Pink Batts brand.

Fletcher is facing increasing competition from Knauf, which has about US$1.9bn in annual insulation sales worldwide compared to Fletcher's US$1.3bn of total building product sales, which also includes plasterboard, aluminium doors and windows and roofing. In February 2014 Fletcher said that the local insulation market remained competitive as price declines offset volume gains.

UAE: Bayer Pearl, a polyurethane systems house joint venture between Bayer MaterialScience AG and Pearl Insulation Materials Industries LLC that was established in 2007, plans a significant investment including new technology and production.

Following the relocation of the regional offices and production facilities to Dubai Investment Park, Bayer Pearl has now engaged Amana Contracting and Steel Buildings to build a new state-of-the-art facility at the Investment Park. The new facility is expected to be complete in 2015 and will feature research, development and application laboratories, advanced manufacturing technologies and a demonstration centre.

"The Middle East is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Dubai serves as the ideal base for Bayer Pearl to further strengthen its presence in the region," said Thorsten Eschmeier, CEO of Bayer Pearl. "The site will host offices and operations and is strategically located close to Jebel Ali Port and the new Dubai World Central airport. Furthermore, the new site allows us to expand our competence in developing new applications and manufacturing processes for our materials in close collaboration with our customers."

Denmark: Danish insulation materials producer Rockwool plans to invest Euro67m to modernise its plant in Øster Doense in Jutland. No further details have been released.

UAE: Strong demand for its products in the GCC states has prompted Emirates Extruded Polystyrene (EEP), a subsidiary of Dubai Investments, to announce plans to expand its production capacity within the next two years. The company currently exports to other GCC states and to regions beyond including India, Southeast Asia and Africa.

The upgrade will increase total capacity to approximately 2.4Mm²/yr and enable EEP to meet the 'burgeoning demand' in the export market for its unique extruded polystyrene sheets. The company has witnessed a phenomenal surge in demand amidst the ongoing construction activity in the UAE and other GCC markets, making its current production of around 1.2Mm²/yr of extruded polystyrene sheets quite inadequate to take care of future requirements.

EEP currently utilises 80% of its capacity and will have to step up production to catch up with demand. The additional capacity will come from a new production line that will cater to the predicted surge in demand for insulation materials once the Expo 2020 projects are activated in the next two years. The new line will be set up at EEP's 6235m² plot in Dubai Investments Park.

Thanks to a UAE Federal Law that enforces the use of energy-saving and environment-friendly building materials in the construction industry, it has become mandatory for many companies to use extruded polystyrene sheets for the insulation of roofs, walls and foundations.