Mongolia: Mongol Basalt LLC and Italy's Gamma Meccanica have signed a US$18m agreement to produce mineral wool insulation materials and purchase a production line.
The agreement was signed during the visit of Mongolian Minister of Industry Dondogdorj Erdenbat to Italy. Mongol Basalt has also entered loan negotiations with the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group to receive funds to buy equipment. The loan will be guaranteed by the Italian Export Credit Agency (SACE).

Denmark: Rockwool's profit rose by 34% year-on-year to Euro19m in the third quarter of 2015. Its operating profit fell from Euro51.5m to Euro31.9m and its turnover dropped from Euro580m to Euro571m. Rockwool has now downgraded its growth for 2015 to 1 – 2% and its profit to Euro147m.

CEO Jens Birgersson said that Rockwool's most important markets, Germany and France, were challenging, while there is positive development in the US and in Northern Europe. The company has invested Euro36.2m in a new ceiling board production plant in Mississippi, US. Rockwool is implementing a savings strategy aimed at making annual savings of Euro49.9m as of 2017.

Brazil: Sulzer has received an order from Innova for the delivery of a foam production system with Sulzer's extruder-based melt impregnation technology. The 24,000t/yr plant in Triunfo, Brazil, will produce expanded polystyrene (EPS). Commercial production is planned to start in the middle of 2016.

Videolar-Innova is the first and only petrochemical company in Brazil to integrate the production units for ethylbenzene, toluene, styrene monomer and polystyrene into a single industrial plant. The newly-formed company is the biggest producer of styrene monomer and polystyrene in Brazil. With Sulzer's support, Videolar-Innova will enter the South American insulation market. The company will provide strategic downstream integration with unique production capabilities, in a region that still imports most of its EPS.

US: The Rockfon unit of Denmark's Rockwool International will build a US$42m plant in Marshall, Indiana to make acoustic ceiling tiles. The 130,000ft² plant will employ at least 90 people. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016, with the plant opening in the middle of 2017 on a 404,686m² site at the Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park shared with corporate sibling Roxul.

The new plant will make ceiling tiles with stone wool insulation made at the neighbouring Roxul plant, which also owned by Rockwool. That US$160m plant opened in 2014 and employs 150 workers. It will be the fifth Rockfon plant worldwide and the first in North America. John Medio, Rockfon's President of the Americas, said that the plant is, "Extending global capacity and meeting the growing demand for Rockfon's stone wool acoustic ceiling products in North America."

The Mississippi Development Authority will give the company US$2.4m for infrastructure and worker training, with the Appalachian Region Commission providing US$300,000. The Tennessee Valley Authority and Marshall County are providing undisclosed assistance. Rockfon has been granted a 10-year tax exemption from non-school property taxes.