After Invista (Wichita, Kansas / USA; www.invista.com) terminated the lease, the closure of Nilit’s (Migdal Haemek / Israel; www.nilit.com) plant in Östringen / Germany appears imminent. A spokesman told Plasteurope.com that the production of PA 6.6 fibres will cease by April 2012 at the latest. The closure will affect 230 employees, after 40 workers had already been laid off in spring this year. Nilit had said the measure might preserve the Östringer site, when in May it announced plans to raise fibre output in both China and Israel.

It remains unclear what will happen to the machines located in Östringen. The Israeli group had taken over the site from Invista in 2007, using an external source to supply the necessary polyamide. As for Invista, it had ceased producing artificial fibres in Östringen at the end of 2010, as a result of which 445 employees were made redundant.

The German site was first founded in 1963 and acquired by DuPont in 1993. The US group then raised Östringen’s production capacity to 130,000 t/y of textile and carpet fibres. The site was acquired by Invista parent company Koch Industries in 2004.