Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Belgium: Knauf Insulation plans to install 6000 photovoltaic panels at its Visé mineral wool plant. These will provide 1700MWhr/yr to the unit. The announcement was made at the opening of Knauf Insulation’s Experience Centre in Visé. The centre is intended to act as a knowledge base for best practice and sustainability.

Ireland: Kingspan Group sales rose by 18% year-on-year to Euro1.06bn for the first quarter of 2019. It attributed this to ‘strong’ volumes across its key markets. Its insulated panel sales grew by 22% driven by growth in Europe. Its insulation board sales increased by 12% due to growth in Europe.

US: Johns Manville has appointed John Vasuta as the president of its Engineered Products business. He will lead the business that manufactures glass fibre nonwovens, polyester spunbonds and glass fibres for the building and construction industry, as well as for automotive, industrial and residential applications. It operates manufacturing plants in the US, Germany, Slovakia and China.

Vasuta most recently worked at Bridgestone Corp. as president and managing director, Firestone Building Products International as well as Global Senior Vice President, Firestone Building Products. He joined Bridgestone as Deputy General Counsel and later held a variety of executive-level jobs, including president of Bridgestone’s 250 commercial store division and vice president of International Sales and Operations for building products. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering, an MBA and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Akron.

Belgium: Recticel’s insulation division’s sales rose by 4% year-on-year to Euro62.5m in the first quarter of 2019 from Euro60.1m in the same period in 2018. It said that volume growth had overcome falling sales prices due to falling methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) costs. Polyurethane (PUR) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) have continued to gain market share following MDI shortages in mid-2017.

Belgium: Recticel has rejected an offer from Kingspan to buy its insulation division and flexible foams division for Euro700m. The board said that it did not believe that the offer was not in the interest of its stakeholders. It added that the sale of these divisions was not in line with its strategy and that the offer ‘significantly’ underestimated the value of the divisions.