Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

UK: SIG’s sales revenue for the first half of 2018 has remained stagnant due to poor weather earlier in 2018. Revenue in the UK and Ireland fell by 3.1% year-on-year in the period whilst in Mainland Europe grew by 2.9%.

The Sheffield headquartered building materials producer also said in a trading update that it had appointed Ernst & Young as its external auditor. Shareholders previously voted against a bid to reappoint of Deloitte following an overstatement of the company’s profits in 2016. The company has also appointed Alan Lovell and Cyrille Ragoucy as non-executive directors with effect from 1 August 2018.

US: Rockwool has officially broken ground at a new stone wool in Ranson, Jefferson County in West Virginia. Once completed it will be the company’s second stone wool plant in the country. The project has had an investment of over US$150m and it will employ around 150 people when it opens. The unit is expected to open in the first quarter of 2020. It will manufacture a full range of Rockwool stone wool insulation products.

“Solid customer demand and strong market growth in the US and elsewhere reflects the reality that people are increasingly discovering the quality and advantages of our stone wool solutions. This is our second factory in the United States, which positions us well for future growth,” said Jen s Birgersson, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Rockwool Group.

US: Kingspan has launched its QuadCore insulation panel products in North America at the AIA Conference on Architecture in New York. The insulated metal panel products use a hybrid insulation core with a closed microcell structure. Initially, Kingspan will offer QuadCore in its KS Shadowline, KS Micro-Rib and Optimo panels, and QuadCore will eventually be available in all Kingspan insulated metal panels.

US: The Reflective Insulation Manufacturers Association International (RIMA-I) has given the Alexander Schwartz Award to David W Yarbrough. The award was presented at the International Reflective Insulation Manufacturers (I-RIM) Conference that took place in May 2018 in Costa Rica.

Yarbrough is an Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Tennessee Technological University and a retired Research Staff Member of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a founding partner and Vice President of R&D Services and Principal Engineer of R&D Engineering in Cookeville, Tennessee. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and registration as an engineer in Tennessee and Florida.

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Belgium-based insulation producer Krautz-Temax is expanding its production facilities in Orasje, Bosnia & Herzegovina, according to that country’s Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA). Krautz-Temax will soon launch the construction of new facilities on 20,000m2 of land, which will triple its production capacities in the country once completed. The company currently employs over 60 people in Orasje and plans to increase its workforce once the new production facilities are built.

Krautz-Temax first came to Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2015. The company's Bosnian manufacturing facility is equipped with specially-developed machinery to manufacture and process its unique Temax insulation. It plans to also start making extruded polystyrene in the country from the new facilities being installed.