PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2010

PET news 6 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 09/10 www.petpla.net Krones achieves turnaround Krones, the beverage filling and packaging technol- ogy company, has seen order bookings rise by 26.4% to reach €1,104.9 million. In Q2 of 2010, orders were up over the equivalent period for 2009 by 20.8%. Sales for the first six months of the year were up 16.4%, to €1,076.2 million. Growth in Q2 accelerated further, with a sales rise of 22.8% over the Q2 2009. The order book totalled €917.2 million at the end of June 2010, €130.2million ahead of 2009. The company expects the months ahead to assure good capacity utilisation. Profitability is up as well. From January to June 2010, Krones reported earnings before taxes (EBT) of €32.0million, compared with a loss of €15.8 million. April to June showed EBT of €18.8million. Earnings after taxes during the year’s first two quarters increased from 2009’s €16.0 million loss to €22.1 million profit. Earnings per share were €0.73. Krones’ financial and capital structure shows an equity ratio of almost 39%, with net liquidity of €67.9 million. The company says this is a sound foundation for further growth. The company expects sales for the 2010 business year as a whole to grow by 10-15%, reaching €2.10 to €2.15 billion. The Executive Board is confident of completing 2010 in the upper portion of its prediction range and that the year will see respectable profitability, with earnings for the second half expected to exceed those for the first six months. Assuming no change in the overall situation, Krones expects the upturn to continue into the 2011 business year. www.krones.com Historic sales record of La Seda Spanish PET supplier and packaging manufacturer La Seda de Barcelona registered a sales volume of 45.000t of PET resin in the month of June, which repre- sents a 30.8% increase over the same period of 2009. It is the highest turnover the company has achieved in the last 16 months and the highest year-on-year rate of growth seen thus far in 2010. Second quarter sales of PET increased by 14,4%, compared with the previ- ous year. The company says that this growth level, which exceeded commercial expectations, is due to the progressive normalisation of production activity, which enables it to achieve effective operational efficiency levels in all the plants of the Group. After activities were restarted at the El Prat plant in April, La Seda achieved full production capacity of 14,000t; in addition, 12,000t were produced at San Giorgio (Italy); 10,500 in Turkey, 7,500 in Volos (Greece) and 4,000 in Portalegre (Portu- gal). Production efficiency achieved in 2009 has allowed the company to start the path of market recovery against import levels that reached a record volume of almost 800.000t in 2009. www.laseda.es W. Amsler Equipment wins CPIA’s plastics innovator award The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) has named W. Amsler Equipment Inc., Richmond Hill, Ont., as the recipient of its Plastics Innovator Award, which honours com- panies who have contributed to the expansion of the Canadian plastics industry through the advancement of technology. The award will be presented at CPIA’s annual general meeting and the 2010 Plastics Industry Awards event on June 3 at the Toronto Congress Centre. In the award citation, CPIA listed several technologies launched by W. Amsler during 2009. These included a fully automatic loading system for wide mouth preforms up to 89mm; a new machine series that allows for adjustable cavitations on PET blow machines; and a modular semi-automatic pal- letiser. The company was among the first to develop all-electric machines and now manufactures reheat stretch-blow moulding machines and auxiliary equipment for manufacturers of plastic containers for the personal care, beverage, pharmaceutical, and household cleaning products markets. www.amslerequipment.net New low-melt, sealing-grade polyester polymer Invista, one of the world’s largest integrated producers of polymers and fibre, has added Polyclear Seal PET 7001/7003 for low-melt applications to its sealing-grade PET polymers portfolio. The company says that Polyclear Seal PET 7001 and 7003 address a market need for a low-melt, sealing grade PET polymer. The primary difference between them is that Seal PET 7001 is produced with an alternative catalyst. The compounds are the latest products to have been developed and opti- mised on Invista’s continuous polyester polycondensation pilot line in Gersthofen, Germany. Other compounds cre- ated there include PolyShield resin. Invista has opened this particular asset to external parties interested in material and process development or small-scale production campaigns of polyester for fibre, film, containers and engineering resins applications. The company says that it is suitable for developing and testing DMT- or PTA-based polyester attributes, including new raw materials and additives; new process technolo- gies, process modifications and improvements; and sup- port for commercial scale production trials. It is capable of producing a wide range of condensation polymers ranging from standard PET to PBT, PETG and PEN and other specialties. The Invista Quality and Research team will work with organisations using the facility, from trial planning through scientific trial documentation. The continuous pilot line has a nameplate capacity of 40kg/h with a throughput ranging from 20kg/h to 56kg/h. Dosing points for additives covering all stages of the process are positioned throughout the line. www.invista.com