Akro-Plastic (Niederzissen / Germany; www.akro-plastic.com), a compounding subsidiary of K.D. Feddersen (Hamburg / Germany; www.kdfeddersen.com), has sent out a letter to its customers informing them of the effects of the flooding disaster on its plant in Niederzissen. “Since many of our employees live in the most severely affected area, the disaster is also directly impacting our operational business (…). Many roads in the region are impassable and this is disrupting logistics too. As a result of the weather disaster, we are therefore expecting production stoppages and delays in deliveries over the next few days.”

As the company stressed to Plasteurope.com, no further details can be provided on the potential extent of the damage as yet. In Niederzissen, Akro-Plastic produces 120,000 t/y engineering compounds on 26 extruders on the basis of standard polyamides (PA 6.6 and PA 6), semi-aromatic polyamides, polyesters, polyketone and PEEK. With its production facilities in Suzhou, Jiangsu / China und Itupeva / Brazil, the company’s overall capacity amounts to 165,000 t/y.

German automotive supplier ZF has now announced a production stoppage for its domestic plant in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate. Media reports a few days after the flooding disaster stated that no details could be provided so far on the duration of the production stoppage. A spokesperson was also unable to comment on whether there were plans for the production of valves for electronic damping systems located in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler to be temporarily moved to other ZF sites.

Gisela Debus-Huppertz, owner of converter Debus Kunststoff-Spritzguss (Grafschaft / Germany; www.kunststoffverarbeitung-debus.de), has been able to confirm that everything is fine, by contrast. The plant in Grafschaft, with two production shops and a warehouse, both of which are in excess of 600 m², plus a current payroll of ten, is located sufficiently high up.