Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

South Korea: The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has suspended the Korea Foamed Plastic Industry Cooperative’s standard for expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulating sandwich panels. The standard had been certified by the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology. Maeil Business Newspaper has reported that the suspension is part of a regulatory revision in the interest of fire safety. The value of the South Korean EPS sandwich panel industry is US$1.37bn/yr.

The Korea Foamed Plastic Industry Cooperative said “With a severe shortage of certification agencies, it takes over a year to obtain certification. This is tantamount to telling small businesses to shut down.”

South Korea: KCC has started operating its new second 48,000t/yr glass wool production line at its Gimcheon plant. Chair Chung Mong-jin and chief executive officer Jeong Jae-hun attended a ceremony marking the achievement in late August 2023. The company says that the new line is the largest single one of its type in the country.

Australia: Malaysia-based PGF Capital is preparing to open three distribution centres at Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. The mineral wool insulation producer set up its new regional headquarters in Melbourne in the third quarter of 2022, according to the New Straits Times newspaper. The site at Brisbane is set to become fully operational in March 2023, the site in Perth in May 2023 and the site in Sydney is expected to be operational in the third quarter of 2023.

The expansion drive is part of a project to grow its business in Oceania. Another market that the company is targeting is South Korea. PGF Capital and its subsidiary PGF Insulation said it has started making modifications to its production line at Perai in Penang to meet the local market requirements. it plans to start supplying insulation products to the country later in 2023.

South Korea: KCC Corporation is upgrading its Gimcheon and Munmak glass wool plants. A second production line is being built at the Gimcheon plant in Gyeongbuk and the production capacity of the existing production line is being increased at the Munmak plant in Gangwon-do. The upgrade projects will be completed in October and March 2023 respectively. Once finished the combined projects will increase the company’s total production of glass wool by 80,000t/yr.

KCC says that it is making the investment in inorganic insulation production capacity in response to revisions to local building regulations. It added that the law was changed in 2021 due to several fire-related incidents. The upgrades are also expected to reduce production costs per unit.

Luxembourg: Armacell recorded consolidated net sales of Euro591m in 2020, down by 8% year-on-year from Euro644m in 2019. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 10% to Euro120m from Euro134m. During the year, the company completed a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foaming line expansion in Suzhou, China, built an elastometric foams plant in Cheonan, South Korea and consolidated its Italian insulation activities at a new facility in Turin. It also made strategic investments in diversified areas.

President and chief executive officer Patrick Mathieu said, “In a complex and challenging environment our business model again proved resilient. With our global reach and multi-segment activity, we ended the year in relatively good shape. We took the appropriate measures to navigate changing circumstances and ensure we come out of the pandemic stronger than before. Our utmost priority was always to safeguard the health of our employees, maintain operations and continuously support our customers.” He added, “After the successful closure of our capital market refinancing in February 2020, our shareholders PAI Partners and KIRKBI expressed their commitment to our on-going growth strategy. In 2021, we look forward to partnering with our customers in adding value to their businesses.”

South Korea: FM Global has approved LG Hausys’ phenolic foam as fire-protective by global standards. The US-based mutual insurance company granted Factory Mutual Approval on criteria testing fire-resistance for ceiling boards and wall panels for the insulation product, according to the Korea Herald newspaper. LG Hausys started producing phenolic foam insulation board in 2013. In May 2018 it opened a second production line at its Cheongju plant in North Chungcheong Province. A third production line is scheduled to be completed by early 2020.

South Korea: Hankuk Glass Industries (HGI), a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, has launched a tender offer to acquire the 23% of its shares owned by minority shareholders. As a result of this successful offer, Saint-Gobain, together with HGI, now holds 96.8% of the share capital of HGI, with a delisting planned. HGI manufactures insulation for the construction and automotive markets and glass products for markets in South Korea and Asia.

South Korea: Armacell and JIOS Aerogel (JIOS) have formed a joint venture called Armacell Jios Aerogels (AJA) to develop and manufacture silica aerogel blankets. The new company will be based in Hong Kong and South Korea, operating from Armacell’s existing manufacturing facility in Cheonan, close to Seoul.

JIOS is contributing its process technology and proprietary manufacturing know-how as well as the intellectual property. Armacell will invest an undisclosed amount into aerogel blanket production equipment, accelerate the industrialisation and certification process and provide its world-wide distribution network to market the new technology. AJA will focus on delivering solutions based on aerogel blankets to the oil and gas, marine and general industrial sectors and in particular for high temperature and cryogenic applications.

“The joint venture with JIOS provides us with access to the next generation of aerogel technology and enables us to deliver a complete portfolio of thermal and acoustic insulation solutions to the oil & gas industry,” said Patrick Mathieu, chief executive officer and president of Armacell International.

South Korea: Air Products has been awarded a long-term contract by KCC Corporation, a construction material manufacturer, to supply oxygen to the new glass wool production line at its Gimcheon plant. The new production line is scheduled to become operational in 2017.

Air Products will install a Prism vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) oxygen generator at KCC Corporation’s Gimcheon site to supply on-site gaseous oxygen to the furnace for full oxy-fuel combustion, a technique to make glass manufacturing cleaner.

“We have been supplying different offerings to KCC Corporation, including at the Gimcheon site, and are honoured to have won their continued confidence,” said Kyo-Yung Kim, president of Air Products Korea.

Air Products supplies integrated solutions to the global glass industry, from gas supply to combustion systems, technology, customised control systems, technical and design expertise, commissioning service, safety and site training, maintenance contracts and project management. The company also specialises in oxy-fuel combustion technology.

South Korea: LG Hausys plans to increase sales of its phenolic foam (PF) insulation six-fold by 2018, which it produces from its plant in North Chungcheong Province.

"We will see a change in the construction market in Korea," said Kim Myoung-deuk, head of decorative material department. "Many people prefer remodelling their houses and eco-friendly materials will become more popular." LG Hausys's PF insulation has a thermal conductivity of 0.018W/mK, which is about twice as efficient as polystyrene insulator at 0.034W/mK.

LG Hausys began producing PF insulation in October 2013. It aims to post US$12.6m in sales in 2015, up fromUS$7.21m in 2014. Sales are expected to top US$45m by 2018. It is a challenging goal, considering the stagnating construction industry in the country.

"Until now, around 80% of the insulation market has mostly been polystyrene or polyurethane, but a move to materials with higher insulation performance and better fireproofing has been forecast," said the vice president of LG Hausys. "We will be able to achieve this challenging goal." Researchers have estimated that the market share of the high-performance insulator in the global insulation market will increase from 10% in 2015 to >30% by 2018.

LG Hausys plans to focus its business capacity on developing insulation products for fire doors and sandwich panels and expanding to China. The Chinese government is preparing to enforce an energy-saving policy that tightens the insulation level in buildings, especially in the north. Because of this, it is estimated that the Chinese high-performance insulation market will grow more than 50%/yr. "We expect the high-performance insulator market to grow continuously, on policies for fire safety and energy saving and because of growing consumer interest in reducing the cost of heating and cooling," said Myoung-deuk.