Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

US: Germany’s Covestro plans to spend Euro1.5bn on building a new methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) plant at Baytown in Texas. The new plant will have a production capacity of 0.5Mt/yr and production is expected to start in 2024. The investment at the existing site in Baytown is the largest single investment in the history of the company. It will replace the 90,000t/yr MDI unit at the site.

“Demand for innovative MDI materials will continue to grow for the foreseeable future and likewise promises attractive capacity utilisation rates. We have already announced a significant increase in capital expenditures, now it’s time to put it into action”, said Markus Steilemann, chief executive officer (CEO) of Covestro. He added that the investment would strengthen the company’s ‘leading position’ in polyurethanes.

Covestro is also running a global investment programme in MDI production capacity, including plans to double its MDI production at Brunsbuettel, Germany to 0.4Mt/yr from 0.2Mt/yr by the second half of 2019. Other parts of this initiative include the continuation and expansion of plants in Tarragona in Spain, Caojing in China and Antwerp in Belgium.

UK: Plans by Knauf Insulation and Veolia to tackle complains about the ‘offensive’ odour from a glass-recycling unit at Knauf’s St Helens mineral wool plant have been approved by the local council. The proposals include introducing a wet scrubber and extending the current dryerstack to 30m from 13m, according to the St Helens Star newspaper. These measures were suggested following an assessment with Odournet. Local residents have made complaints about the Veolia-run unit since it became operation in October 2017.

US: Knauf Insulation has celebrated its 40th anniversary in the US. ‘Knauftoberfest’ featured German-themed music, costumes, foods and beers, according to the Shelbyville News newspaper. The German company has its US headquarters in Shelbyville and it started local operations in 1978. At present Knauf operates multiple facilities in the US and it employs around 1900 workers.

Ireland: Kingspan Group has highlighted its membership of Science Based Targets initiative (SBT) to set targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Kingspan has set a 10% reduction in emissions by 2025 from the base year of 2017. It also plans to reduce its absolute emissions from purchased goods and services, business travel, transport and distribution, and end-of-life treatment of sold products by 10%. It committed to its target in February 2018.

“At Kingspan, we are dedicated to sustainable business practise, from our products, to our processes and our people, which is why we are delighted to sign up to the Science Based Targets Initiative. This provides measurable targets for our business to achieve and will ensure that we continue to match our words with actions that make a real difference,” said Gene Murtagh, chief executive officer (CEO) of Kingspan.

The SBT initiative is the result of a partnership between the World Resource Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and the United Nations Global Compact, which looks to support companies across the world to do their part in tackling the worst impacts of climate change by supporting them to determine how much they must cut their emissions by. It provides participating companies with a clearly defined pathway to future-proof business growth by specifying how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. These targets are set in line with the level of decarbonisation required to keep global temperature increase below 2°C, consistent with the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, which 195 countries signed up to.

In 2017, 69% of the total energy used by Kingspan’s operations came from renewable sources, and the group says it is on target to achieve its goal of Net Zero Energy (NZE) status by 2020. As part of its journey to achieve NZE status, Kingspan Group has seen a 77% reduction in carbon intensity across its operations, and is benefitting from 34.5GWh of on-site energy it is generating.

US: Demilec has been awarded the 2018 Polyurethane Innovation Award at Polyurethanes Technical Conference in Atlanta by the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). It won for its Heatlok HFO product, a two component, closed cell, spray applied, rigid polyurethane foam system. Other finalists included ICL-IP America, for its VeriQuelR100 phosphorus-based, reactive flame retardant product, and SWD Urethane, for its Quik-Shield 108YM open-cell spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation product.