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M&G ANNOUNCES LABORATORY MOVE AND CONFIRMS COMMITMENT TO TECHNOLOGY
15 January 2002 - M&G Group
| M&G’s US research facility currently in Akron, Ohio, will move to a wholly owned facility in Sharon Center, Ohio, south of Cleveland. This move follows the completion in 2001 of a new European laboratory for M&G, which was constructed in Rivalta near Milan, Italy. |
Detailed planning for a new multi million-dollar research and development centre is
well under way. The 40,000 sq ft facility will allow for some expansion from the
space utilised at the current facility. In addition to the cost of the centre itself, M&G
will be investing $1 M in capital equipment spending to improve ability to develop
new, improved products which will better serve customers needs. The move will be completed by the end of Q3, 2002. There are presently over 40
people working in the laboratory and no reduction in staff numbers or research
capabilities is envisaged as a result of the move. According to Delane Richardson, Director of Research and Development, Americas,
“ I believe I speak for all of the Polyester Technical Centre staff, we are thrilled at the prospect of occupying a state of the art research facility by the end of Q3 2002. Our goal is, in conjunction with the new lab in Europe, to effectively support the growing volume of PET being manufactured and sold by M&G worldwide. Our immediate challenge will be to maintain operations at the centre during this transition. I know all the staff are very excited by the move and M&G’s commitment to the PET industry that is demonstrated by this investment in research and development”. Guido Ghisolfi, Vice President for Operations and Technology, says, “Last year we
showed our commitment to this business by announcing the investment in a new
production facility at our site in Altamira and by building a new European research
facility that will also better serve the global needs of our PET businesses. We begin
2002 with a strong demonstration of our commitment to a technology base for M&G. These investments allow us to grow further and develop exciting new resins for the emerging opportunities for PET, as well as ensuring that our resins for the traditional applications provide the performance needed by our customers. I am sure we can expect the fruits of our faith in research and development to continue to keep M&G in the forefront of technology developments of polyester resins for packaging applications”.
http://www.mgpolymers.com
About: M&G Group
M&G is a family owned chemical engineering company headquartered in Tortona, Italy. It develops innovative and cost effective PET resins for container packaging and is presently the world’s second largest producer of PET for packaging applications with production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per annum. Group sales proceeds in 2003 were $1.6 billion of which around 80% were derived from operations involving PET.
M&G Group is divided into three business units, PET Polymer, PET Packaging and Acetates. In Europe, M&G has capacity to produce around 2.5 billion preforms per annum at two locations in Italy. It operates the largest SSP unit in North America and has the current world’s largest PET production unit (1200t/d) at its Altamira facility in Mexico. The Group has manufacturing assets in Brazil, Italy, Mexico and USA. The Group supports three R&D Facilities; Italy, USA and Brazil. |
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