The first oven at the new Egyptian facility owned by Chinese fibreglass manufacturer Jushi Group (Tongxiang City, Zhejiang; www.jushi.com) is still waiting to be fired up – see Plasteurope.com of 12.06.2013. Area distribution insiders are suggesting that the delay of the commissioning at the Jushi Egypt Fiberglass plant in Ain Soukhna – about 40 km south of Suez – is due to the continued political unrest in the North African country and has been postponed indefinitely.

Construction began end of 2011 and Jushi had planned for the commissioning of the USD 220m plant with a capacity of 80,000 t/y to occur in Q4. This timeline will be difficult to keep even if a turn of events were to suddenly happen, leading to a cooling down of the recent violence in the country and Egypt suddenly found itself back on a peaceful routine. Starting up a glass oven generally involves several weeks before commercial production can get underway. Adding to the Egyptian turmoil is the weak demand in the composites segment, brought about by the European summer holiday season, which will not rebound until early September. What seems most likely is that the fibreglass produced in the new Egyptian facility will eventually find its way to southern and southeastern Europe in early 2014.