Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Poland: Belgium-based Recticel has signed a preliminary agreement with Poland-based insulation company Gór-Stal. Under the agreement, the producer will acquire the company’s polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation business for Euro30.0m. The company employs 66 people at its Bochnia plant in Lesser Poland Province. In 2020 it generated net sales Euro16.7m and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of Euro2.50m. Its capacity utilisation rate was 40%.

Chief executive officer Olivier Chapelle said, “The acquisition of the Gór-Stal PIR-based insulation board activities marks an important step in the development of our insulation business. This acquisition perfectly fits our ambition to further expand in the growing thermal insulation markets of Central and Eastern Europe. It meets three fundamental prerequisites: a state-of-the-art asset, a perfect geographical complementarily, and a focus on high performance PIR insulation solutions. We look forward to welcoming our new and highly skilled colleagues from Gór-Stal.”

Recticel expect to close the deal in July 2021.

UK: The Construction Products Association and the Builders Merchants Federation have raised the issue of low short-term availability of polyurethane (PUR) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation. The associations attributed the shortages to the effects of ‘historically’ high raw materials costs on production. These it said resulted from high international demand for raw materials and finished products and challenges as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The associations expect PUR and PIR availability to improve in the third quarter of 2021. They said that long-term demand growth was set to continue, in part due to the government’s 2050 net zero carbon target.

Turkey: Assan Panel has added two new insulation boards to its product range. Its new AssanBoard insulation boards consist of a polyurethane (PUR)-polyisocyanurate (PIR) mix, while its new AssanWool insulation boards are made of stone wool. The company says that both boards are suitable for roof trapezoidal sheet, seam system, cassette and curtain wall system use, as well as for use in acoustic applications and fire compartment applications.

Ireland/UK: Mannok says that it has undertaken extensive preparatory measures to help its operations transition smoothly when the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December 2020. While keeping operations unchanged, the group has formed new legal entities such as Mannok GB, which will deal with UK customers. The group acknowledged that prices would depend on the future tariff arrangement between the UK and the EU, but would remain in line with market pricing. It added that the same effects would impacts competitors, who import significant amounts of raw materials from Europe.

The group said that it has been working closely with suppliers for over 18 months to ensure the security of its supply chains. It has capacity at its sites to store enough raw materials for polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation for a ‘number of weeks’’ of production.

Chief financial officer Dara O’Reilly said, “A key priority for us in all of this was to ensure that the service we can provide to our customers in a post-Brexit environment is as seamless as possible. We’ve made the changes to our structures; we’ve made the changes to how we operate and as a result of that, regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, we’re ready.”

UK: Italy-based Hennecke-OMS says that it has received an order for a 45m/min lamination line for Ballytherm UK’s upcoming 1.2Mm²/yr Herefordshire polyisocyanurate (PIR) and polyurethane (PUR) insulation plant. The plant consists of a continuous foaming line including a 38m double belt conveyor and foaming, mixing and distribution units for the PUR foam inside the two flexible facings, a cross cutting unit, a panel cooling section and stacking and packing equipment. The company said, “The entire plant in a fully automatic cycle and is controlled by a series of electric control panels based on an industrial Siemens S7 PLC and with relevant interface operator panels.”

The supplier added, “The choice of Hennecke-OMS as the supplier for Ballytherm’s second plant confirms the excellent co-operation between supplier and customer, as well as Hennecke-OMS’ leading position in continuous plant technology.”

Installation will commence in October 2020 and Ballytherm plans to commission the line in early 2021. It has future potential for expansion to 70m/min lamination capacity, according to the supplier.

US: Huntsman’s first quarter net income was US$708m in 2020, up by 440% year-on-year from US$131m in 2019. It made sales worth US$1.59bn over the period, down by 4.6% year-on-year from US$1.67bn in the corresponding period of 2019. Polyurethane (PU) insulation sales decreased slightly due to ‘decreased demand across most major markets, partially offset by modest growth in polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation sales volumes.

Huntsman chair, president and CEO Peter Huntsman said, “We have been well-prepared for this global economic crisis. Our balance sheet is stronger than ever before, with significant cash and robust liquidity. Having learned from prior crises, we pre-emptively reduced unnecessary inventories and are reducing capital spending this year by 30%, or approximately $90m, by delaying discretionary spending.”

Belgium: Recticel’s insulation division’s sales rose by 4% year-on-year to Euro62.5m in the first quarter of 2019 from Euro60.1m in the same period in 2018. It said that volume growth had overcome falling sales prices due to falling methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) costs. Polyurethane (PUR) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) have continued to gain market share following MDI shortages in mid-2017.

US: Canada’s IKO plans to build a new US$70m plant in Hagerstown, Maryland. It will be the company’s sixth US manufacturing location. The 46,000m² plant and warehouse site will be used to manufacture will produce roofing and insulation products including polyisocyanurate insulation. It is scheduled to open in mid-2020.

"Hagerstown is another example of IKO's commitment to building the strongest and most state of the art production network in our industry," said Guy Tremblay, IKO's Vice President of North American Operations.

Belgium: Huntsman Polyurethanes has launched its DaltoPIR XHFR product for composite panels. The polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation product was introduced at a panels and profile conference in Greece.

The product uses DaltoPIR insulation technology to offer a different viscosity build up in rising foam. The company says that this enables more stable and more consistent processing, which in turn can help panel producers achieve better panel planarity and quicker line speed. The resulting foam has very low friability, which Huntsman says contributes to the long-term properties of the panels.

UK: An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama news program has alleged that a safety test for Celotex’s RS5000’s polyisocyanurate foam (PIR) insulation board product used extra fire retardant in safety tests. The programme believes that a different product was eventually sold to the public. It also accused the subsidiary of Saint-Gobain of mis-selling the insulation with misleading marketing.

Celotex said that it was unaware of this allegation and had not identified anything that would support it. It is investigating this allegation as a ‘matter of urgency.’ It added that it had not used any special formulation for a recent successful BS-8414 system test in May 2018 or Class 0 fire testing.

Celotex suspended supply of RS5000 PIR insulation board in June 2017 following its use as part of the rainscreen cladding system in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower. The building had a fire in June 2017 that killed 72 people.