Russian polymers processing pulling through without investments
July 27/2009
MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Russian polymers market may easily survive the crisis owing to equipment already installed, MRC’s analysts state.
The current output capacity of the installed equipment exceeds the
level of polymers processing 1.4 times. In some sectorsthat ratio
moves at 2.5 times.
Convertersare better to forget about new products and new projects
for, at least, two years. The current task is to revamp the existing
business. Before the crisis, investments into processing had been
increasing 28% annually. The year of 2008 turned out to be the all-time
record in the history of the Russian polymers business: investments
into equipment exceeded USD 1 billion.
For example, producersofcablegoods carried out a tremendous renewal
of the equipment fleet. They imported 40 complete lines to process
polymers. They were mainly focusing on equipment to produce power
cables with insulation made of cross-linkedPE (Maillefer and Rosendahl
Maschinen). Overall output capacity of the equipment mounted to 77.7 kt
converting into PE .