Biaxplen (Nizhny Novgorod / Russia; www.sibur.ru/biaxplen), a subsidiary of Russian olefins giant Sibur (Moscow; www.sibur.com), has announced the start of operations at its 500,000 t/y metallising unit for BOPP film in Tomsk / Russia. The subsidiary is the largest Russian BOPP film manufacturer, with five plants in the country.The new unit will supply domestic customers and cater to Siberia's growing demand for quality packaging.

Metallised BOPP film, coated with an aluminium nanolayer using vacuum deposition, is used in food packaging, especially for products that require sealed storage and light protection. The film is also used in gift wrapping, decorative labels, advertising and printed products, and is recyclable.

Biaxplen executive director Victor Lushnikov says the metallisation unit will add high value-added products to the company’s range of grades. He added that the unit will also supply “Tomsk-manufactured metallised films to the markets of Siberia and neighbouring regions,” and help redirect “similar grades produced at Sibur's other sites to the European part of Russia and the EU.”

At a press briefing in London recently, Sibur executive director Sergey Komyshan talked about the Russian BOPP film market, which “showed a stable 4% growth in 2017 influenced mostly by the growing food processing industry.” He said Biaxplen introduced several new products in labels and food packaging that would decrease specialities imports from Europe, but noted that “overall import volumes remained at the same level and were compensated by Asian commodity products due to lower than expected utilisation rates of the new Russian BOPP producer Waterfall Pro (Shakhty; www.waterfall-pro.ru).” – see also Plasteurope.com of 27.08.2014.

Komyshan expects the market to continue growing 3-4% annually in the coming years, boosted by increasing food production and the self-adhesive labels segment. New suppliers will add new volumes to the market, and he sees the competition in commodity films becoming even more fierce in 2018. “In this situation we are focusing on value-added products as well as improving the level of our service offering to key clients.”