Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Australia: Kingspan Australia has complained that its can’t compete against foreign competitors due to shipping charges at the Port of Melbourne. Charges at the port have led to the state government to consider taking action. Kingspan says it has conducted an international benchmarking survey across ports it uses, including those in the UK, the UAE, China and South Korea. It found that Melbourne was the most expensive and one of the most expensive ports in the world for terminal handling and port service charges.

Exports comprise a third of the output of Kingspan’s plant at Somerton. Further plans to upgrade the plan depend on its export market. The US$30m plant opened in mid-2017.

UK: The shareholders of SIG have voted against the reappointment of Deloitte as auditor for the insulation materials producer. The board said that it took its shareholders’ views ‘extremely seriously’ and that it will find a new auditor as soon as practically possible. The shareholder discontent follows the discovery that the company’s profits were overstated in 2016.

In a trading statement covering the first four months of 2018, the company revealed that its sales fell slightly by 0.3%. Sales revenue fell by 4.4% year-on-year in the UK and Ireland due to poor weather in February and March. European sales rose by 3.8% due to good performance in Germany, the Benelux region and Poland.

UK: Celotex says that a rainscreen cladding system using its RS5000 polyisocyanurate foam (PIR) insulation board product has passed the BS 8414:2 safety test. The insulation producer previously announced in January 2018 that it had found errors between a previous test and the description of the system in the report of the test. It added that the rainscreen cladding system conformed to the BR 135 fire test. It is now notifying the relevant bodies and is contacting its customers about results of this latest test.

Celotex suspended supply of RS5000 PIR insulation board in June 2017 following its use as part of the rainscreen cladding system in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. The building had a fire in June 2017 that killed 71 people. The suspension remains in place.

UK: Knauf Insulation has appointed Luke Davies as product manager to lead the development of its rock mineral wool range. He joins from architectural aluminium manufacturer Kawneer and brings product marketing experience in sectors including construction, retail and technology.

China: Owens Corning has completed the acquisition of Guangde SKD Rock Wool Manufacture. SKD produces mineral wool insulation for the building and technical insulation market. No value for the purchase has been disclosed.

“We see great opportunity to provide our customers in China with products in both the mid temperature building and high-temperature industrial-application markets. This acquisition furthers our strategy to expand Owens Corning’s technology portfolio across the three largest insulation markets in the world,” said Owens Corning’s Insulation President Julian Francis.

Owens Corning now has seven insulation manufacturing facilities across China, that provide customers with a full temperature range of products including fiberglass, extruded polystyrene foam, cellular glass and mineral wool insulation.