Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

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.

Hungary: Masterplast’s sales revenue rose by 17% year-on-year to Euro18m for the first quarter of 2017. Sales in Hungary grew by 40% and the insulation producer saw sales rise in all export markets with the exception of the Ukraine, according to local press. Sales in Slovakia and the European Union grew by 37% and 4% respectively but sales fell by 8% in the Ukraine. Around 41% of its revenue came from sales of external wall insulation system parts. However, despite the company’s rising sales its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 8% to Euro0.61m from Euro0.73m due to higher transport costs, higher labour costs and falling price margins.