Mayland Enterprises becomes part of PSI
Roswell, Ga. - Plastic Solutions Inc. has merged with Mayland Enterprises Inc. to create a commodity resins distributor with annual sales of about $100 million.
The new firm will operate under the PSI name, according to Brad Morgan, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Roswell-based PSI.
The combined entity will distribute about 160 million pounds of polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene per year. Slightly more than half of that amount will be prime resin, with the remainder in off-spec grades. PSI did more than half of its business in PE, while Ellenboro, N.C.-based Mayland was equally balanced in all three materials.
In addition to its Roswell office, PSI operates an office in Canton, Ohio, and uses public warehousing in various parts of the country. Mayland, founded in 1971, has an office and warehouse in Ellenboro. The combined firm will employ 17.
Mayland President Richard Hughes Jr. and Vice President Paul Dumesnil will remain with PSI as senior vice presidents. Ed Heckert will remain president of PSI, which was founded in 2002.
The merger will make PSI more balanced in its product mix and will open opportunities for new customers, Morgan said.
``The customer overlap between the two firms was very small,'' Morgan said. ``There are a lot of areas for growth.''
Morgan also wouldn't rule out future mergers or acquisitions.
``We need to get our arms around this merger first,'' he said. ``But after that, if opportunities present themselves, we'll have to take a look.''
Ampacet continues increasing capacity
Tarrytown, N.Y. - Capacity growth continues at Ampacet Corp., which has increased color concentrate output by 20 percent in Heath, Ohio, by adding a new twin-screw extrusion line.
The new line will focus on rigid packaging markets, mainly in blow molding and injection molding applications, officials with Tarrytown-based Ampacet said.
Ampacet will sell the concentrates to makers of polyolefin-based caps, closures and containers. The line also will be able to accommodate rapid turnaround times for custom color products, according to Doug Brownfield, strategic business manager.
In recent years, Ampacet's expansions in Heath have included multiple custom color lines, a full-color lab, a three-layer blow molding machine and injection molding machines for evaluating consumer packaging components and other packaging systems.
Earlier this year, Ampacet opened its first Mexican plant - a 40,000-square-foot facility in Queretaro making color and additive concentrates. In 2005, the firm increased the size of its color concentrates plant in Rayong, Thailand, to 110,000 square feet.
Ampacet operates 17 plants worldwide, employing more than 1,400. The 69-year-old, privately held firm has annual sales of more than $650 million and operates almost 900 million pounds of concentrate capacity.
Ampacet ranks as one of North America's five largest compounders and concentrates makers, with market share estimated at 3-4 percent.
Huntsman considers new project in China
SALT LAKE CITY - Huntsman Corp. and three Chinese firms are joining forces to evaluate construction of a major Chinese plant for polyurethane feedstock methylene diphenylene diisocyanate.
Shanghai Hua Yi Group Co., Sinopec Shanghai Gao Qiao Petrochemical Corp. and Shanghai Chloro-Alkali Chemical Co. Ltd. are working with Salt Lake City-based Huntsman on the project. Several sites are being considered for the plant. If approved, the facility would start in 2010 and have annual capacity of almost 900 million pounds of MDI.
``The market for polyurethanes in China is growing at double-digit rates, and this is expected to continue well into the next decade,'' Huntsman Polyurethanes President Tony Hankins said in a news release. Major markets for PU include automotive, construction, appliances and footwear.
The material would be sold and marketed separately by Huntsman and Ludwigshafen, Germany-based plastics and chemicals maker BASF AG. Huntsman, BASF and the three Chinese firms already are partners in a plant that will make MDI and related products when it opens later this year in Caojing, China. That site will have annual capacity of about 530 million pounds of MDI.
Huntsman makes commodity and specialty chemicals. The firm posted sales of $11.5 billion in 2004 and has 11,300 employees at 57 sites worldwide.
Sidel consolidating Malaysian factories
LE HAVRE, FRANCE - France's Groupe Sidel is building a 118,400-square-foot plant near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The new factory will replace two plants Sidel operates in Malaysia - a country that is home to Sidel's second-largest blow molding machinery manufacturing operations, outside of its Le Havre headquarters plant.
Sidel began manufacturing in Malaysia in 1996, opening a 21,600-square-foot plant in Shah Alam. The company has built 480 blow molding machines since then, for sale around the world. Sidel said it assembles low- and medium-output PET bottle machines that are identical to those made in France. Last year, Sidel's Malaysian factory began design, development and production of a new range of linear blow molding machines, the SBO Compact.
