PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2014

NEWS 10 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 10/14 www.petpla.net Milacron to invest USD30 million to expand India production capacity Milacron LLC, the manufacturer of plastic processing equipment and control systems, announced its plans to fur- ther invest USD30 million (EUR23 million) in its India opera- tions. The firm plans to invest USD20 million in Ferromatik Milacron India’s Ahmedabad facility to double its manufac- turing capacity of injection moulding and blow moulding machines as well as commence the production of extrusion lines. The expansion will increase the production capacity from 1,500 to 2,100 injection moulding and blow moulding machines a year. The company is also planning to double the workforce from the current 1,200 employees in various Indian locations to 2,400 in line with the expansion. The company will invest another USD10 million in Mold Masters (a subsidiary of Milacron LLC), manufacturer of hot runners and controls, for expansion at its Coimbatore facility to meet the growing customer needs. www.milacronindia.com Resilux reports positive half-year Resilux NV, the Dutch producer of PET preforms and bottles, reported a positive trading pattern in the first half (H1) of 2014. The volume of preforms and bottles sold increased by 3.3% compared to H1 2013. West Europe, Russia and The United States were all positive but there was a decrease of sales in East and Central Europe. The growth was the result of diversification in the custom- ers base and products. Turnover was EUR147.7m, down 3.3% on H1 2013. The company says this arose from increased volumes, lower average prices of raw materi- als and a slight decrease of the average weight of the preforms. Resilux can pass on fluctuations in raw mate- rial prices to customers. Gross profit (“added value”) was up 6.5% (€2.1m) to €33.7m. EBITDA rose by 8.0% to €18.0m. Depreciations and amortisations increased €0.4m, to €6.6m, which was ascribed to lower reversals of depreciations of stocks compared to the first half of 2013. Total personnel cost rose by €1.0m. “Operating result” for H1 2014 amounted to €11.4m (2013: €10.5m), an increase of 9.1%. Pre-tax net profit amounted to €9.6m, a decline of €0.3m compared to H1 2013. Post-tax profit has been declared at €7.7m, up 2.7% over the previous year. Resilux expects that operating results for H2 2014 will be in line with the equivalent period in 2014. www.resilux.com New senior appointment at Petainer Petainer, the Czech-based container manufacturer and supplier of plastic packaging for beverages, has appointed Herman Green as Global Sales Director Large Contain- ers. He has joined Petainer from Libbey Inc., a leading producer of glass tableware products, where he served as Sales Manager, Sales Director and Commercial Direc- tor for Libbey Portugal. Prior to this he worked for Hunter Douglas, a manufacturer of window coverings and architec- tural products. He will be speaking on behalf of Petainer at Canadean’s Beverage Packaging Conference, 28-29 Octo- ber 2014, Brussels, Belgium. www.petainer.com Petcore announces PET recycling figures PET is by far the most recycled plastic material recy- cled in Europe, with the equivalent of around 65 billion bottles recycled in 2013, according to findings by Petcore Europe. This represents around 56% of all PET contain- ers in circulation but the report found that there are still huge disparities in collection rates among EU Member States. Petcore Europe Chairman Roberto Bertaggia said that all stakeholders need to work together to align the collection processes, in order to deliver the increased recycling objectives recently announced by the Euro- pean Commission. The total collection of PET bottles in Europe at 1.64Mt represents a 7% increase on the previ- ous year. One of the challenges to utilisation of existing spare recycling capacity was highlighted as the increasing complexity of some collected baled bottles. Petcore said that improved and standardised collection and sorting processes would help to address that issue. The full find- ings will be presented during the PET Network Day 2014 conference in Brussels, Belgium, 9 October. www.petcore-europe.org PTI aiming to cut energy costs Plastic Technologies, Inc. (PTI) has announced that it is embarking on an initiative to help bottle producers reduce energy costs. The initiative is building on the success of a project that has already seen a small number of North American brand owners cut costs of bottle manufacture by up to USD500,000/yr. PTI says that it is aiming to expand the initiative to other companies and internationally. Donald Miller, Vice-President, technical services, with PTI said that the key to reducing energy consumption is to think of air delivery and air demand [blow moulding equipment] requirements together, rather than as separate areas. PTI designs bespoke energy savings plans after undertaking a multistep analysis of the entire bottle production process, from preform to discharge. The entire process, including machine capabilities, blowing cycle, oven control and vali- dation are examined. PTI says that its review and recom- mendations could help multi-site bottle producers to save millions of dollars annually. www.plastictechnologies.com