Beirut-based paper, plastic and corrugated packaging producer Industrial Development Company (Indevco, Lebanon; www.indevcogroup.com) in late January announced that its Indevco Plastics (www.indevcoplastics.com) business unit has acquired its first manufacturing facility in the US, situated in Longview, Texas. The company said it would make a “significant” investment in the site, which it intends to equip with state-of-the-art machinery. Indevco did not specify an investment sum or start-up date, merely saying that the facility is to serve as a “one stop shop” for the US petrochemical industry, especially for the widely expected surge in exports.

The group has been serving the US petrochemical industry with imported flexible packaging from its member companies, most of which are situated in the Middle East. But in view of the expected surge in polymer exports from the US, the Lebanese group decided to set up a direct manufacturing presence in the US. “Indevco Plastics will offer clients high-quality and cost-efficient packaging by leveraging seamlessly off manufacturing platforms in the two lowest feedstock cost areas of the world: the US with the new plant in Longview, Texas, and the Middle East through sister companies in Indevco Group,” the company said. Its petrochemical packaging portfolio comprises bags and sacks, bulk bins and liners as well as protective films and sheets, mostly made of either paper or PE.

Founded in 1955, Indevco Group has a total workforce of more than 10,000, spread across 72 member companies. It operates 51 manufacturing plants in the US, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Ghana, Iraq and Cyprus, and also has 21 commercial offices spread throughout Europe, Africa and South Asia. Aside from flexible plastic packaging – including laminated and co-extruded PE and PP, printed and non-printed films, rolls, bags, pouches, sachets, liners, labels, lids, covers, sheets and tapes – the group also manufactures paper containers as well as consumer products, including diapers, cling film and garbage bags, among others.

The company already has operations in the US, although to date its activities here focus on paper mills as well as the production of corrugated containers and sheet. It also runs bio-mass power plants.