PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2016

PREFORM PRODUCTION 38 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 06/16 www.petpla.net Novapet’s 5 th edition of “Chips & Grapes” PET in the vineyards Conference Creating new markets for PET by Gabriele Kosmehl Every two years the Spanish producer of PET, preforms und bottles Novapet opens the doors to its Chips and Grapes Conference, which established itself as an important venue for the European PET industry. This year’s fifth edition, however, unlike its predecessors, did not take place during the grape harvest in the wine region around Barbastro, but in April – for a good reason, since the launch of Novapet’s newly expanded injection plant was the centrepiece of the meeting. When Novapet entered the PET business about 20 years ago, there were hardly any customers in the beverage bottling industry who were interested in buying PET granules. Instead, the bottling companies demanded finished bottles which only had to be filled. But the market devel- oped and demand for preforms among the bottling companies rose and rose, and, with increasing expertise among Novapet’s customers, so did demand for PET granules. “Now it is kind of a way back,” explains David González, Managing Director of Novapet when talking to PETplanet. “The market has changed again; the injection activ- ity became more complicated. Years ago, a customer would produce a single bottle type without modify- ing or changing the mould during the whole process. Now the very same customer has to have a variety of bot- tles at hand, so he is outsourcing the injection activity.” Novapet recognised the need to provide the beverages market with the entire spectrum of the services associated with the material, preforms und bottles. “Our business is arranged in three divisions. We have our Polymers division through which we produce and distribute a wide range of specialised resins,” explains González. “The second division is Packaging, focused on preforms and bottles. The third division is special- ised in Light barrier applications for the dairy market.” In order to offer its customers the full range of injection services, the plant in Barbastro was refitted in record time: in just five weeks, the injection plant was modified so that it can now be operated with a maximum of twelve injection moulding machines instead of the previous seven. The machine park was expanded by five new PET-line 96CV moulds machines from Netstal, complementing the existing Husky and Netstal injection moulding machinery. As Juan Antonio Cejalvo, Industrial Manager Novapet, explained in his speech at the meet- ing, the expansion was also accom- panied by investments in quality assurance procedures as well as the installation of online preform control units in all IMM, the incorporation of a new artificial vision quality inspec- tion unit for automatic preform control – with simultaneous reduction of CO 2 emissions by 50 % across the entire system. “The implementation of this project has had the difficulty that all new units had to be fitted within the original plant, which posed an engi- neering challenge.” explained Cejalvo. Trends on the PET market With this investment project and the positioning in the sectors raw materials, preform/bottle and light The conference participants of this year’s Chips & Grapes Conference