Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

US: Johns Manville (JM) has announced plans to expand the capacity at its Scottsboro, Alabama, thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) plant. The state-of-the-art TPO plant was first opened in October 2008. JM will complete the expansion in April 2015, increasing its total TPO production capacity by 20%.

JM's TPO formulation has remained unchanged since its launch and has proven to be durable under real-world conditions of heat and ultra-violet (UV) exposure. "Commercial Roofers Inc began installing TPO more than 10 years ago. We have found it to be installer-friendly and energy compliant. It has a long, useful life expectancy and is cost effective. This provides great benefits for the building owner," said Scott Howard, president of Commercial Roofers Inc.

US: Johns Manville (JM) has announced a significant upgrade to its nonwoven glass mat production plant in Waterville, Ohio. Beginning in late 2015, JM will upgrade an existing nonwoven mat line with advanced manufacturing technology that will allow it to better serve customers in growing segments of the global specialty glass mat market. JM anticipates the upgraded production line will be fully operational in early 2016.

"Our upgraded Waterville plant will enable JM to provide global product capability between Europe and the Americas and to deliver global product consistency with regional availability," said Tanya Bradby, portfolio leader of Nonwovens America.

Russia: TechnoNicol continues the construction of a polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam insulation board plant in Ryazan, despite the possible decline in demand in the construction market. The plant will have a production capacity of 2Mm³/yr. The launch is scheduled for autumn 2015, following investments of Euro21.2m.

TechnoNicol believes that the new material will be prospective, as PIR is not currently produced in Russia. The share of PIR in the European market of insulation materials for commercial facilities amounts to 40% and grows by around 3%/yr. About 76% of flat roofing in the USA is built using PIR boards. TechnoNICOL expects PIR to capture 2% of the insulation market in Russia by 2018, which currently stands at 47.5Mm³/yr.

Russia: Grigory Protosenya, the general director of Penoplex, has forecast that the demand for the company's products will decline until late 2015 or the middle of 2016 due to the inertia of the construction market. The demand reduction will affect all manufacturers, but mostly small companies.

Penoplex plans to raise its prices by about 30% in the spring of 2015 due to increasing costs of equipment and raw materials. It has no plans to cut production. Moreover, it will launch a new 2000kg/hr capacity line at its plant in Novomoskovsk, Tula region, in 2015.

So far, Penoplex has not shelved its plant construction project in the Volga region. Protosenya believes that the company will meet the current crisis in a 'steady state.' Weakening of the Russian Ruble will also allow it to start exporting products, primarily to Finland and Norway. However, shipments will be small at 20,000 - 30,000m³ and exports of around 2.50Mm³/yr.

Latvia: The Latvian construction materials manufacturer, Tenapors, plans to invest Euro3.8m in a new production plant in Dobele. The new plant, which will produce insulation sandwich panels, will be completed in September 2015 and will employ 15 people. Roberts Kurma, director of the export department at Tenapors, said that the new plant would allow the company to double its production volume and sales in the Baltic States and Scandinavia. Tenapors had another factory in Valmiera, which produces insulation materials from geofoam.

Serbia: Masterplast, a major producer of thermal insulation materials in Central and Eastern Europe, has announced that it plans to expand its plant located in Szabadka, Serbia. Masterplast will invest Euro400,000 of its own resources in the expansion and will launch trial production in its second fibreglass plant. 

Russia: TechnoNicol plans to invest US$62.2m in the construction of two plants to produce insulation products in the Karaganda region of Russia. The company intends to invest US$48m in the construction of a 80,000t/yr capacity basalt insulation plant and US$13.1m in the construction of a 300,000m²/yr capacity extruded polystyrene insulation plant.

The two projects are to be implemented in 2014 - 2016 in the Saryarka special economic zone in Karaganda, creating a total of 285 jobs. The relevant memorandum has been signed by the governor of Karaganda Region Nurmukhambet Abdibekov and TechnoNicol's president Sergei Kolesnikov.

US: Unifrax Corp, a producer of ceramic fibre insulation materials, is getting 3.3MW of low-cost hydropower from the New York Power Authority for a pair of expansion projects in the Town of Tonawanda, New York. The work is expected to create 75 new jobs.

The low-cost electricity, about 40% below wholesale power prices, is in addition to US$1.4m in tax credits that the company could receive through the State’s Excelsior Jobs Programme and US$2.5m in tax breaks approved earlier in 2014 by the Erie County Industrial Development Agency.

In one project, Unifrax plans to spend US$18m to build and equip a new 76,000ft² manufacturing plant in the North Youngmann Commerce Centre, a business park next to its current operations. The IDA in August 2014 approved US$1.2m in tax breaks for the expansion project, which Unifrax will use to expand production of polycrystalline fibre that it currently produces in Japan. The company, which needs more capacity for that product, had considered options such as expanding the Japanese plant or building a new plant at one of its other sites before settling on the Tonawanda site. 

In July 2014 the IDA approved US$1.27m in tax breaks for a separate US$33m project in Tonawanda that involved acquiring facilities on Fire Tower Drive that the company already leased, as well as building a new facility there and installing machinery and equipment.

US: Unifrax Corp, a producer of ceramic fibre insulation materials, is getting 3.3MW of low-cost hydropower from the New York Power Authority for a pair of expansion projects in the Town of Tonawanda, New York. The work is expected to create 75 new jobs.

The low-cost electricity, about 40% below wholesale power prices, is in addition to US$1.4m in tax credits that the company could receive through the State’s Excelsior Jobs Programme and US$2.5m in tax breaks approved earlier in 2014 by the Erie County Industrial Development Agency.

In one project, Unifrax plans to spend US$18m to build and equip a new 76,000ft² manufacturing plant in the North Youngmann Commerce Centre, a business park next to its current operations. The IDA in August 2014 approved US$1.2m in tax breaks for the expansion project, which Unifrax will use to expand production of polycrystalline fibre that it currently produces in Japan. The company, which needs more capacity for that product, had considered options such as expanding the Japanese plant or building a new plant at one of its other sites before settling on the Tonawanda site. 

In July 2014 the IDA approved US$1.27m in tax breaks for a separate US$33m project in Tonawanda that involved acquiring facilities on Fire Tower Drive that the company already leased, as well as building a new facility there and installing machinery and equipment.

US: Less than a year after reopening a shuttered plant, Knauf Insulation has announced plans to double production at its Chambers County plant in Alabama, adding up to 100 new workers. The expansion, which should be complete by the middle of 2015, will make the 800,000ft² plant one of the largest insulation plants in the USA.

The US$30m expansion includes a significant upgrade in equipment, according to Joey Viselli, Knauf's vice president for corporate and public affairs. "When this expansion is through, the plant will produce more insulation than it has ever produced before," said Viselli.

Knauf shuttered the plant in 2010 in response to the collapse of the housing market. Company officials credited Alabama State with recruiting them to return when the market began to improve. Viselli said that the decision to expand was based on continued positive growth in the national economy, the growth of Knauf’s business and an inviting business culture in Alabama.