Bottle blow molders report gains despite lower resin costs

This week's issue of Plastics News features our North American blow molders ranking.

The 102 companies we rank are listed with related sales from the completed 2023 fiscal year, making up a combined total of $22.2 billion, up $990 million over the previous ranked year. The average sales per company comes out at $217.5 million, up 4.3 percent.

In this ranking, we separate bottle blow molders with everything else categorized as industrial. That makes for an 80-20 split, with bottles representing $17.8 billion in sales. To put that another way, increased bottle sales made up 69 percent of that $990 million gain for the entire ranking.

Those numbers are not simply due to the pass-through of raw material costs. The average price of PET bottle resin in 2023 was down about 79 cents per pound, or 7 percent vs. 2022.

Prices have dropped even further so far in 2024, down about 73 cents so far. Polyethylene and polypropylene pricing were both down 22.7 and 32.9 percent, respectively, in 2023.

So, what created gains? Here are the top firms in order of largest gain along with their blow molded products:

• Amcor Rigid Packaging: medical, consumer packaging and beverage bottles.

• Plastipak Packaging Inc.: medical, beverage and consumer products.

• OPMobility Clean Energy Systems: fuel systems for the auto industry.

• Kautex Textron GmbH & Co. KG: automotive and consumer packaging.

• ABC Technologies: automotive, bottles and jugs.

• Siena Plastics LLC: jerricans for the food, chemical and textile industries.

• Aaron Packaging Inc.: plastic bottles and jars.

• Novares Walworth: custom thermoplastic components, extruded tubing and tanks.

• Hi-Rel Plastics & Molding Inc.: medical, custom, bottles and containers.

Our top bottle blow molder is Amcor Rigid Packaging, ranked at No. 1 with $3.5 billion in sales in North America.

Our top industrial blow molder is at No. 6, OPMobility Clean Energy Systems, formerly Plastic Omnium Auto Inergy (USA) LLC, with $1.05 billion in related sales.

Where do blow molders most frequently operate? California, Ohio and Texas topped the list of plant locations, raking in nearly 20 percent of the 526 facilities we track. Canada and Mexico account for 70 locations combined.

No. 44: FirmaPak LLC includes Container Services Inc. and Apex Plastics. Together they are part of the new FirmaPak platform.

No. 65: Welcome to the ranking, container maker Siena Plastics LLC of Charlotte, N.C.

With this ranking, we've now published all six of our plastics processor rankings for the 2024 calendar year: thermoforming, injection molding, pipe/profile/tubing extrusion, film and sheet manufacturing, rotational molding and blow molding, representing $157 billion in North American production sales. This week's blow molders make up 14 percent of that total.

Find all our rankings and lists online at www.plasticsnews.com/businessdata.

If you work for a company that is missing from the ranking, then we would like to include you in the next update. Just send a note to me at [email protected] or mail your information to Plastics News, P.O. Box 790, Tallmadge, Ohio 44278.

Plastics News rankings and lists in spreadsheet format, are available to download with an All Access subscription, sign up at www.plasticsnews.com/subscribe

Hollee Keller is the editorial research coordinator for Plastics News and author of the All Things Data blog. Follow her on LinkedIn.