Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

UK: Knauf Insulation and Veolia have officially opened a Euro11m glass-recycling unit at Knauf’s St Helens mineral wool plant. The unit will be able to recycle over 60,000t/yr of used glass that will then be used as a glass cullet source for glass mineral wool production.

"We have been using recycled glass in our manufacturing process for some time already. As well as securing our glass supply, the quality and consistency that we are getting now from the new facility will enable us to increase further the percentage of glass cullet we use in the manufacture of our glass mineral wool insulation solutions, taking us one step further in our sustainability journey,” said John Sinfield, Managing Director at Knauf Insulation Northern Europe.

Veolia's unit sorts and separates glass to produce pure glass cullet. Machinery at the unit includes vibrating screens for size sorting, magnets to extract ferrous materials and eddy current separators for non-ferrous materials. The new facility enables Knauf Insulation to secure its glass supply and maximise the use of recycled materials instead of using virgin minerals. The closeness of the new unit to the St Helens plant is also expected to save around 600,000km of road journeys. Glass mineral wool products from the plant contain up to 80% recycled materials, the vast majority of which now comes from the glass cullet supplied by Veolia. The new recycling unit has also created 18 jobs.

Germany/Poland: Rockwool plans to build new production lines at its stone wool insulation plants at Malkinia in Poland and Neuburg in Germany. The expansions are intended to target demand in new builds and renovation for non-combustible stone wool insulation, particularly in the external wall system and flat roof insulation segments. The upgrade work at Malkinia also includes improved environmental measures.

“Demand for stone wool insulation is expected to grow in key European markets, and expanding existing facilities lets us add capacity relatively quickly. We are also making good progress on multiple initiatives to optimise and upgrade other of our manufacturing facilities to boost output and reinforce our market-leading position,” said Rockwool Group chief executive officer (CEO) Jens Birgersson.

The new production capacity is scheduled to come on line in the second quarter of 2019 in Poland the second quarter of 2020 in Germany. The cost of the investment is approximately Euro175m. The insulation producer is also planning to increase production capacity at other plants through modifications to equipment and workflow to eliminate bottlenecks.

Ireland: Kingspan Group’s revenue grew in 2017 due to strong European sales despite a ‘weakening’ UK market. Its revenue rose by 18% year-on-year to 3.67bn in 2017 from Euro3.12bn in 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 9.3% to Euro442m from Euro404m. Sales of both insulation boards and panels grew.

“We have continued our globalisation strategy with several significant acquisitions, including establishing a market leading presence in Latin America. Our new Light & Air division is performing ahead of expectations and expanding the range of product solutions the business offers. The challenge of increased input costs has been effectively managed to minimise the impact on profit margins. Notwithstanding the weakening UK market our well diversified business is well placed for the longer term,” said Gene M Murtagh, the chief executive of Kingspan.

US: Owens Corning’s net sales rose by 12.5% year-on-year to US$6.38bn in 2017 from US$5.68bn in 2016. Its earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) rose by 5.4% to US$737m from US$699m. The building materials producer’s sales from its insulation division rose by 14.5% to US$2.00bn from US$1.75bn and its EBIT rose by 40.5% to US$177m from US$126m.

“Owens Corning had another great year. We were pleased by the continued momentum in our three businesses and the addition of Paroc and Foamglas to our portfolio,” said chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Mike Thaman.

Denmark: Rockwool has appointed Bjørn Rici Andersen as Senior Vice President for Group Operations and Technology. Andersen, currently working as Vice President, Group Operations, will join the Group Management role on 1 March 2018. Bernard Plancade, who has previously held this role in Group Management since 2015, will become Managing Director for Rockwool Core Solutions, based in Paris.