Over the past few years, Russian compounder R&P Polyplastic (Moscow; www.polyplastic-compounds.ru/eng) has been making some smaller deliveries to Europe and in 2018 registered orders for test quantities totalling around 80 t of polymer materials, half of which went to customers in Germany and Latvia. The company’s "Export Rush" programme that aims to export one third of overall output has been running since 2017 – evidently falling short of this. This is to be boosted by, among other things, the European distribution agreement concluded with German distributor Polytrade Global (Frankfurt; www.polytrade.de) in October 2018 – see Plasteurope.com of 08.10.2018.

However, the Russian company, which forms part of the group that includes plastic pipes producer Polyplastic (Moscow; www.polyplastic.ru), is certainly registering growth on the domestic market. According to a spokesperson, R&P Polyplastic's sales have risen from RUB 7 bn to RUB 9.7 bn (around EUR 130m) over the past two years. Compounds production has increased from 71,000 t in 2016 to 80,000 t in 2018 and the company says this covers 40% of the Russian market.

The base polymers used for the compound brands "Armamid", "Armlen", "Technamid" and "Armoflen" are still chiefly PP and PA 6 from Russian production – this could be one reason for the company’s lower sales quantities in Europe. Compounds based on PPS and TPE are still at the developmental stage, and long fibre-reinforced thermoplastic (LFT) grades made with PP and PA are to be produced for the first time in 2019.

A further increase in capacity from the current 115,000 t/y at the two Russian plants in Saratov and Togliatti is not planned at present due to low capacity utilisation. The company is aiming for an output of 100,000 t by 2020.

Just over a third of its overall output goes to the automotive industry, where R&P Polyplastic is working with automotive manufacturer Peugeot Citroën Mitsubishi Automobiles (PSMA) Rus, for example. Peugeot has been operating an assembly plant near Kaluga / Russia since 2010 – about 200 km southwest of Moscow. Other major customers are in the household appliance and construction sectors.

The company’s materials are also distributed by Polystylex (Riga / Latvia; www.polystylex.com), which is a distributor for Constab, Ineos and Kafrit in the Baltic states as well as in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. Also based in Latvia is pipes manufacturer Evopipes (Jelgava; www.evopipes.lv), which Polyplastic acquired in 2014.