For around EUR 20m, Société Générale des Techniques (SGT, Rezé / France; www.sgt-pet.com) is to build a second injection moulding plant in Le Grand Chalon, about 100 km to the south of Dijon. Construction is due to start in May 2018, and the 10,000 m² production plant should be completed in spring 2019. The company says the 5-hectare site in the east of the country also has space for expansion. By 2019, 40 new jobs will initially be created there.

With this project, SGT is reacting to increasing demand from the domestic market, but also from abroad. In particular, managing director Frédéric Mignot wants to move closer to customers from eastern Europe.

It is the fourth plant in total for the family-run business, and the second in France (see Plasteurope.com of 08.09.2015). SGT currently processes around 160,000 t of PET into 5.3 bn preforms, which are supplied to countries throughout Europe and North Africa.

At the "All4Pack" 2016 trade fair, SGT received the innovation award for a monolayer PET preform for the production of opaque milk bottles, which are popular in France. It replaces a previously used multilayer variant.