PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2014

PET news 6 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 01+02/14 www.petpla.net Changes at Engel Christian Pum, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) of Engel Holding GmbH in Schwertberg/Austria, has decided to resign from his position with the company. Dr. Christoph Steger, former Vice President for Engel’s Packaging Business Unit, has been appointed as the new CSO with immediate effect. www.engelglobal.com M&G Chemicals and Guozhen partner in giant biorefinery M&G Chemicals has announced that it is to construct a second-generation biorefinery in the region of Fuyang, Anhui Province, People’s Republic of China (PRC). It will have the capacity to convert one million tonnes of biomass into bio-ethanol and bio-glycols and will have four times the capacity of the recently-inaugurated bio-refinery built by Beta Renewables in Crescentino, Italy.The project is expected to be realised through a joint-venture with Chinese company Guozhen. It will provide one million tonnes of straw bio- mass and use the lignin by-product from the bio-refinery to feed a 45MW cogeneration plant, which will be constructed at the same time and on the same site as the bio-refinery. M&G Chemicals will be majority partner in the bio-refinery and minority partner in the power plant. The bio-refinery will employ Proesatm technology licensed from Beta Renewa- bles, a joint venture between Biochemtex (part of the Mossi Ghisolfi Group); TPG, the US private equity fund; and Danish enzyme producer Novozymes, which will supply the Fuyang facility with necessary enzymes. Mr. Marco Ghisolfi, CEO of M&G Chemicals, said that the new plant is the first act of a “green revolution” that will provide environmental sustainability to both the PET beverage packaging and poly- ester textile supply chains. Capital investment in the plant is expected to be in the region of US$500 million and it is planned to be brought onstream in 2015. www.mg-chemicals.com Sidel hosts KnowledgeShare More than 120 participants from all areas of the bever- age industry got together to exchange ideas at Knowl- edgeShare, presented in association with Sidel over two days in November 2013 at the Frankfurt Hilton Hotel, Germany. Among the issues addressed throughout the event was the challenge of developing a sustainable approach to satisfying consumers’ needs. ‘Futurologist’ Dr. James Bellini’s presentation, entitled “Horizon 2030: Predict- ing the demands of tomorrow”, considered the scale and pace of change, including the rising population, and the pressures this puts on the world’s resources. The theme was addressed again by Mark Driscoll, Head of Food at the Forum for the Future, when he addressed “Sustain- ability in a resource constrained world”. Alongside the keynote presentations individual ses- sions covered a number of specific topics including the state of the global beverage industry, beverage safety, “Unlocking the value of PET”; and “Defining tomorrow’s production line”. In his concluding remarks, Dr Bell- ini highlighted three big issues that he said have to be tackled in the 21 st century: health and wellbeing; sustain- ability; and food and beverage. He said that forecasts for 2030 suggest that demands for energy and food will have increased by 50% and that for water by 30%, alongside the additional pressures brought about by an increasingly urban population. Delegates were able to engage with the panel discussions directly, via specially-provided iPads. www.sidel.com Husky wraps up its World Tour Husky Injection Molding Systems has concluded its first ever Husky World Tour, which included more than 15 customer events over the course of 2013 in nine different countries in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. More than 600 companies attended the events, which started in January with a Beverage Packaging Day in Korea and concluded with the Hot Runner and Controller Conference, held November 19-20 in Milton, Vermont. Stops on the tour included focused customer meetings, product demonstrations, customer dinners and facility tours. John Galt, Husky’s President and CEO, hailed the World Tour as a successful opportunity to engage directly with customers and to hear their views on what the company is doing well and where it needs to improve. Events included presen- tations by speakers from different industries, as well as partners showcasing downstream equipment. The recently- launched HyPET HPP5 system was first previewed at the Beverage Packaging Conference in Luxembourg, and the HyCap HPP system made its debut at events in Europe and North America. The company displayed several technologies at its Bolton event, including a complete speciality closures system, an EasyCube mould, and a new 96-cavity preform mould upgrade. A series of dedicated Ultra SideGate dem- onstrations were held at customer facilities across Europe and Asia Pacific. www.husky.ca