South Korean pipe maker Hyundai Pipe Co. Ltd. is expanding production capacity and its product range to meet growing demand in the country's water utility and petrochemical industries.
Hyundai, based in the city of Sang Ju, will be adding capacity to make polyolefin pipes with a diameter of 2.6 meters, according to a news release from Vienna, Austria-based Battenfeld Cincinnati Group, which is supplying the equipment.
Hyundai currently has eight extrusion lines and capacity of 48.5 million pounds annually at its three facilities in Sang Ju. It said the market is growing in the country but there's sometimes skepticism about plastic pipe.
“We have to replace old steel pipes with plastic pipes,” said Hyundai President Cho Sun Jae. “The quality of [high density polyethylene] pipes has already been proven, but there are still some parts of the market that do not see the advantages.”
It currently makes pipe up to 1.5 meters in diameter, and is one of the country's five largest makers of plastic pipe.
Battenfeld Cincinnati said Hyundai is buying a solEX line 120-40 single screw extruder, a helix VSI-T+ pipe head and a vacuum tank designed for large diameter pipe extrusion, for applications such as transporting water in power stations.