Insulation manufacturer Austrotherm (Waldegg / Austria; www.austrotherm.at) has expanded its activities in southeastern Europe. On 7 November 2017, the company brought into operation its third plant in Romania. The new facility that produces EPS panels opens Austrotherm up to Romanian regions. "Transport costs are a key factor of competition in Romania too," explains Austrotherm managing director Gerald Prinzhorn. "So far, with our deliveries to the west of the country, and particularly over the Carpathian Mountains, we have literally been paving the streets with cash."

The Austrian company has adopted a different approach at its new location and, for the first time, is renting an existing EPS plant on an exclusive basis. The Romanian plant operator to date, Von Meister, has only been able to exploit resources to a limited extent, says Prinzhorn. Austrotherm has taken the opportunity to overhaul existing capacities, and twenty new jobs have been created at the site.

Austrotherm regards Romania as holding a great deal of potential for thermal renovation, even though demand for insulation materials has been rising continuously for the past three years. "We have already attained a good capacity level at our locations in Bucharest and Horia," says Prinzhorn. "With the production location in Arad we have not only moved closer to our customers but are also better equipped for the recovery of the construction industry that is now coming about."

Austrotherm’s EPS plant in Bucharest opened in 1999. Production in Horia, in the northeastern part of the country, was launched in 2006, and extended to XPS panels two years later. From its Horia site, the company also supplies markets in the Ukraine and Moldovia. The Austrotherm group now has 21 production locations in Austria, Romania, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary. With 950 employees, the company had sales of EUR 304m in 2016.