Plant Expansions: Röchling expands in India with 2nd building; Asahi Kasei to expand capacity for spunbond in Thailand

Röchling Engineering Plastics has inaugurated its second plant in Vadodara, India, with a building of more than 5,000 sq m adding new product lines and additional production capacity. With an investment of around EUR2.5 million, the new plant and equipment bring Röchling India’s production and warehouse space to a leadership position in the highly competitive Indian plastics market, says the firm.

The first factory was inaugurated in 2014 in Vadodara, a fast growing hub of German companies in India.

In the new building Röchling’s latest extrusion line produces Polystone PP, in sheets form with a width of up to 2,500 mm.

Röchling made the first step into the Indian market in 1998 with the establishment of a sales office in Mumbai. In 2007, Röchling set up a CNC machining centre in Vasai supplying tailor-made composite components, and engineering plastics components for various industries.

In 2014, Röchling set up its first production plant in India for thermoplastics, in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) in Manjusar, Savli Vadodara, manufacturing the Polystone (PE-UHMW), Sustarin (POM - Polyacetal) sheets, rods and profiles for different industrial sectors.

Franz Lübbers, Member of the Management Board and CEO Röchling Industrial, said at the opening of the plant that the company planned to invest yet another EUR5 million into further product lines and capacity expansion in India in the near future.

In other news, Japan’s Asahi Kasei will expand production capacity for PP spunbond nonwovens in Thailand through the addition of a new production line at its subsidiary Asahi Kasei Spunbond Thailand. Together with the two existing lines, the third line of 15,000 tonnes/year will raise total capacity for spunbond at AKST to 50,000 tonnes/year. The facility is located in the Saha Group Industrial Park – Siracha, Chonburi Province. The new capacity will come onstream in 2021.

Since beginning its spunbond business in 1973, Asahi Kasei has supplied Eltas spunbond for use in a wide variety of applications including disposable diapers and other hygienic products, automotive and other industrial applications, and deodorizing sheets and other consumer products.

Asahi Kasei has expanded the spunbond business with two production sites in Japan (Moriyama, Shiga, and Nobeoka, Miyazaki) as well as AKST in Thailand since 2012.

AKST started operation of its second production line in 2016 to meet rapidly growing demand for spunbond for diaper applications in Asia. The third line will further reinforce AKST’s capability to meet ongoing demand growth with higher product performance, quality, and cost competitiveness, says the firm.

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