German BOPP film producer Treofan (Raunheim; www.treofan.com) has started up a new 8.7m-wide production line at its Neunkirchen / Germany site – see Plasteurope.com of 21.01.2014 – in what the company says is its "largest single investment in decades." The new facility, built at a cost of EUR 30m with design support from Austrian engineering contractor Andritz (Graz; www.andritz.com), has capacity to produce 1 bn m² annually of premium five-layer label and packaging film. The product is planned to be sold in Europe as well as Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The new instalment lifts output capability at the site to 74,000 t/y.

Part of an overall EUR 60m investment, the new plant upgrades its production infrastructure in Germany, Italy and Mexico to the latest technology, Treofan said. Earlier this year, the control system of an existing production line at Neunkirchen was revamped at a cost of EUR 4m and a metaliser installed at Zacapu / Mexico, at a cost of EUR 7m. At the Mexican site and the two Italian sites, the company processes about 60,000 t/y and 48,000 t/y respectively – see Plasteurope.com of 12.05.2015.

“Demand for monomaterials that can be completely recycled and the increasing use of global packaging concepts by major brand manufacturers are worldwide trends,” said CEO Walter Bickl. “This means,” he said, that “films have to offer more and more functionalities when it comes to protective effects, barrier properties and processing methods.” With the new plant, Treofan now has the latest manufacturing technology and has positioned itself as a global premium supplier, Bickl added.