US: Johns Manville has issued information about an upgrade to the furnace of its Waterville plant in Ohio that took place in the summer of 2017. The work re-started the plant’s furnace and increased its production capacity. The site produces a range of engineered products, such as continuous glass fibres for insulation, composites, building materials and engineered thermoplastic market.

Switzerland: Denmark’s Rockwool has purchased all the shares of Flumroc. Previously Rockwool owned a 43.5% share in the Swiss mineral wool producer. Flumroc operates two plants in the country and it sells its products mainly in Switzerland with limited exports to France and Italy. The company will continue to operate under the Flumroc brand.

Romania: Saint-Gobain Isover plans to reopen its glass wool production line at its Ploiesti plant in July 2018. The line is expected to restart following a complete furnace rebuild and other upgrades. 50 new jobs will be created in production, logistics and administrative departments.

“The production line allows Isover to adapt its glass wool production capacity to the market demand in the region, given that Romanian market is the largest of the South-East European region. Our decision was generated by the positive trend registered by the construction market in the past year, a trend that is expected to continue over the next years as well,” said Ovidiu Pascutiu, General Manager for Saint-Gobain Rigips and Isover Romania.

Isover has also announced plans to upgrade its stone wool production line at the Ploiesti plant in 2018. The production capacity of the line will be increased by 30,000t/yr in 2019 following the Euro50m upgrade.

UK: Knauf Insulation has appointed Vanessa Rae as Marketing Director to lead all Northern European marketing activities. She brings over 20 years experience in business-to-business marketing roles in Belgium, Germany and the UK. Previously she worked as the head of marketing and communications for the digital organisation at Rolls-Royce. Prior to this, Rae managed international marketing teams at Kingspan Insulated Panels and NSG Group (Pilkington Glass).