PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2012

EDITOURS REPORTS 12 PET planet insider Vol. 13 No. 05/12 www.petpla.net Sunpet Turkey Gaziantep The re-scheduled meeting with Hakan Cinkilic at his stand at the NPE in Orlando We met: Hakan Cinklic, Foreign Trade Manager Expanding to the South-East Sunpet, with a maximum capacity of 9 million preforms per day, is one of the larger converters in Turkey. The company was launched in Gaziantep in 1998. It focuses on preforms for water and CSD bottling. In recent years the company has found favour with Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. 70% of its preforms go for export to Iran and sur- rounding countries and the Gulf region. The reason for this is Gaziantep’s central position and good links to these regions. So it was almost a foregone conclusion that, in 2010, Sunpet should establish a second plant for itself in Amman, Jordan. With the company still in the same hands, a decision was made in favour of the name ‘Middle East’. “By concentrating production on site, we were able to cir- cumvent a few restrictions and have been able to benefit from the favourable regional cost structures”, says Hakan Cinklic, Foreign Trade Manager of Sunpet. Capacity in Jordan is around 3 million preforms per day. At its home location the company has had very good experiences with Netstal equipment with the result that production is exclu- sively Netstal-based at the moment. The PCO 1881 too is scheduled for production at both locations this summer. www.sunpet.com.tr www.middleeastplastic.com Turkey blog – en route to Azerbaijan I reach the Turkish border at getting on for 4.30pm. A few hundred meters away is an absolutely huge mosque, from which the muezzin is calling the faithful to prayer. Gradually dusk begins to fall. On the outskirts of Istanbul, I turn off the motorway in search of a place to bed down for the night. I soon manage to find a place to park in a petrol station. Not far away is a main road, full of shops, where, thanks to the long opening hours, I stock up with food for the next few days. 8am the next morning finds me back on the road. Overnight, the weather has changed for the worse. Torrential rain and stormy skies give a grey, monotonous pallor to Istanbul. I am on the motor- way, heading towards Ankara, where Mr Cem Altintas from Altintas Goldcap is expecting me that after- noon. I make excellent progress and cover the 450km in about four hours. The scenery en route is con- stantly changing and I greatly enjoy the wonderful views as the motorway snakes through the mountains. At length I arrive at Altintas Goldcap. After an in-depth interview and tour of the factory with Mr Cem Altintas, I am allowed to park the Editour- mobil up for the night on the firm’s premises. It is still fairly early so I take the opportunity during the evening to write up the blog and ponder the next stage of my journey to eastern Turkey. From nearby comes the call of the muezzin. The next morning it is again an early start. At last the sky is blue again and the sun is shin- ing. The journey, on new and well-engineered roads, is relaxing. A few hours later I reach the coast of the Black Sea, and for the next 700km I will be following this road to Georgia. - Kay Krüger - The return leg to Germany Gaziantep greets me with a balmy 20 degrees Celsius. After my initial difficulties with Turk- ish GPS systems, I prefer to rely on the help of locals, whose guidance ensures that I am on time for my appointment with the preform producer Köksan Lande. I am meeting Murat Kögoglu, the third gen- eration of the family to run the company. Köksan boasts a total of 17 preform lines and currently a polymerisation line is being built on the site. About 1,050km lie ahead of me the next day as I head in the direction of Bursa to Eskapet. So far, the Editourmobil has acquitted itself very well on the 10,000 km Go to Brau Beviale tour: a few loose screws in the interior, problems with the steps and a broken water pump on the fresh water tank seem to be the only casualties of the arduous journey. Eventually I arrive at Eskapet, where Ramazan Akar takes me on a tour of the brand-new factory, which has an annual throughput of 50,000 tonnes of PET. The next stage of the journey is on to Istan- bul, and a meeting with Hasplastik. En route, I am delighted to come across an amiable caravan manu- facturer who is able to help repair the water tank, so at long last I have running water again. It is not until 10pm that I arrive at the Hasplastik HQ, where I am able to park the vehicle for the night. Next morning, I am picked up at the Editourmobil by Technical Director Murat Aner who takes me round the site with its 39 closure production lines. But now it is time to bid farewell to Turkey and move on to our next destination, Budapest, where Bericap awaits me on Sunday evening. - Alexander Büchler -