A PVC Container Co. subsidiary will upgrade capacity to blow mold bottles at an $8 million facility under construction in Hazleton, Pa. The plant is scheduled to be operational by October.
The unit, Novapak Corp., will move its Eatontown, N.J., blow molding operations 165 miles to a plant in Hazleton with 160,000 square feet of manufacturing space, expandable to 300,000. Novapak operates 14 lines in Eatontown and anticipates having 16-20 lines soon in Hazleton.
Novapak's management and engineering staffs will remain in Eatontown in a new office building, now in the planning stage. Those personnel and the existing manufacturing operations share 140,000 square feet in Eatontown.
PVC Container operates other blow molding plants in Paris, Ill.; Walterboro, S.C.; Manchester, Pa.; and Philmont, N.Y. PVC Container purchased the Philmont operation March 30 from McKechnie Investments Inc. for $10.2 million.
PVC Container injection stretch blow molds PET bottles and extrusion blow molds bottles of high density polyethylene, PVC and other plastics, for personal-care, household, food, automotive and industrial products.
The relocation has no impact on the Eatontown operations of PVC Container's compounding subsidiary, Novatec Plastics Corp.
Eatontown-based PVC Container had profit of $1.9 million on sales of $47.6 million for the nine months ended March 31.
The publicly traded company ranked 36th in Plastics News' 1997 survey of North American blow molders, with related sales of roughly $45 million.
Earlier this year, PVC Container doubled the size of its Paris plant to 130,000 square feet and tripled production of injection molded PET preforms. That move completed the first phase of a $10 million program to boost PET blow molding capacity at three of its plants.
