TOKYO - A report published in Tokyo last week said Toshiba Machine Co. Ltd. will establish a U.S. facility to assemble injection molding machines. As part of a strategy to boost U.S. sales, Toshiba wants to increase U.S. sourcing of components to 50 percent within two or three years, according to a story that ran Aug. 9 on the Tokyo Financial Wire. Toshiba is based in Tokyo. Officials of Toshiba's U.S. unit, Toshiba Machine Co. America in Elk Grove Village, Ill., did not return telephone calls on Aug. 10.
The brief Financial Wire item did not say where the facility will be based or when it will begin making injection presses.
Toshiba already does some partial assembly in the United States. For the past three years, Toshiba has purchased a number of parts, including screws and barrels, hoppers and electric motors, and installs them on machines built in Japan and shipped to warehouses in Ontario, Calif., and Pine Brook, N.J.
Mitsuaki Eshima, vice president and general manager of Toshiba's Plastic Injection Machine Division, said in a Plastics News story published Dec. 5 that Toshiba wanted to increase North American sourcing.
The dollar/yen relationship, which has forced price hikes for products made in Japan, is spurring a number of Japanese machinery makers to study U.S. manufacturing. Earlier this year, one of Toshiba's Japanese competitors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., began assembling injection presses at its first U.S. location, a factory in Hopkinsville, Ky.
Graham bolsters PET bottle business
YORK, PA. - Graham Packaging Co. is expanding its PET bottle business with a new plant in Muskogee, Okla.
The plant, which will make preforms and finished regular and hot-fill bottles, will employ 50-100 workers. It will include Husky and Sidel equipment, according to the York-based firm.
In late April, Graham announced the installation of a Sidel SBO 24/34 injection stretch blow molding machine at the Emigsville, Pa., plant. At the time, Graham termed the machine the largest-output device for making hot-fill, plastic bottles in the world. The firm installed the machine to support Coca-Cola, a Graham official said at the time.
Senegwald USA, sister firms for sale
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS - Plastic film producer Sengewald USA Inc.'s parent company has put it and five other businesses up for sale, according to The Financial Times of London.
NV Koninklijke KNP BT of Amsterdam plans to sell the foil and plastic packaging firms to focus its resources on graphic board, one-way transport packaging and protective packaging.
Sengewald USA officials did not return telephone calls to comment on the proposed sale. The Marengo, Ill., company bought polyethylene film plants in Grand Forks, N.D., and St. Paul, Minn., from Stone Container Corp. last summer. The plants had about 32 extrusion lines. Sengewald USA also invested about $10 million in an expansion of plant space, film extrusion and printing capacity in 1991.
KNP has retained Goldman Sachs of London to advise on the sale of the six firms, which have total sales of about 400 million Dutch guilders (US$250 million) per year. Four of the companies are in Germany and one is in Egypt.
Italian PE plant to be Europe's largest
MILAN, ITALY - Polimeri Europa announced Aug. 8 it is planning to build a plant in Brindisi, Italy, to produce 880 million pounds of polyethylene a year.
Polimeri Europa is the joint venture company formed by Union Carbide Corp. of Danbury, Conn., and EniChem Augusta SpA of Milan. The company said the facility will be the largest PE plant in Europe. It will use Union Carbide's Unipol gas-phase production technology.
Polimeri Europa now produces 2.86 billion pounds of PE a year in Europe, including low density and high density PE at existing production units in Brindisi. The new plant is to begin production in 23 months. At that time, Polimeri Europa will have the capacity to make 3.74 billion pounds of PE a year.
Briefly. . .
Plastics distributor Bamberger Polymers Inc. of Lake Success, N.Y., has opened a Hong Kong office to distribute locally manufactured resins throughout Asia and to support increased exports to Asia.