Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Belgium: Knauf Insulation’s chief executive officer (CEO) Jean-Claude Carlin says he is committed to increasing production investment in Europe and North America. The group’s Visé plant in Belgium plans to restart its second line by the end of 2017 as well as adding new capacity to meet increasing demand for blowing wool. An upgrade to a line at St Egidien in Germany is underway following mineral wool production line upgrades at Nova Bana in Slovakia and Skofja Loka in Slovenia in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Another as yet unannounced European production line upgrade is planned for 2018. The group is also restarting the second line at its Inwood plant in West Virginia to support growing residential demand in the North East of the US.

“The first few months of the year proved to be highly promising for the industry and in good times it is vital that we focus on doing an even better job of providing the best possible service and quality for our customers. That is why we are planning on maximising our global footprint through investing in improvements and increasing our production capacity across the globe,” said Carlin. He has conducted a fact-finding mission visiting plants and customers since he took up the post in February 2017.

US: Johns Manville has won Insulate America’s supplier of the year award. The insulation producer has won the award four times in five years since 2013. Insulate America is a cooperative group of locally owned, independent insulation contractors. It is the largest independent insulation contracting organisation in the US with 200 locations in 46 states. Representatives from each of the locations vote on the award.

Australia: Pricewise Insulation says that it is hopeful that a shortage of pink batts mineral wool insulation products will be resolved following the end of a strike at Fletcher Insulation in late May 2017. Workers at the insulation producer started industrial action in mid-February 2017. Pricewise, an insulation distributor noticed falling stock levels of the product during the strike.

Russia: EuroChem, a fertilizer producer, and China’s ChemChina have signed a memorandum at the 2017 St Petersburg International Economic Forum on the creation of a joint venture to produce chemical industrial products including isocyanates, a precursor of spray polyurethane foam insulation. The cost of the project is estimated to be US$500m, according to the Tass News Agency. The joint venture will also produce propylene oxides for the use in the development of synthetic lubricants.

The companies plan to start the collaboration by forming a working group to further evaluate the technical possibilities of the project and will carry out a financial and legal examination of the project. Once complete the first project will be an upgrade to EuroChem’s Novomoskovskiy Azot plant in the Tula region. Products from the plant will be targeted at the Russian market.

Germany: Va-Q-Tec is preparing to move its headquarters to Würzburg from Dürrbachau. The new premises are intended to allow the producer of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) and other thermal products to bring together five departments that were previously at different locations. The move is planned to start in June 2017 with the production department scheduled to relocate to the new headquarters by the start of 2018.