French automotive supplier Plastic Omnium (PO, Levallois; www.plasticomnium.com) continues to expand its business abroad. Its Inergy Automotive Systems (Paris / France; www.inergyautomotive.com) subsidiary plans to start building a facility to produce plastic fuel tank systems in St. Petersburg / Russia next year to meet the rise in local orders from Ford, General Motors and Nissan. The facility will be operated by Inergy’s 51:49 joint venture with Detalstroykonstruktsiya (DSK, Togliatti / Russia) – see Plasteurope.com of 20.10.2011. The new plant brings Inergy’s operations in Russia to three – aside from St. Petersburg, the French group also runs facilities in Stavrovo and Togliatti. The PO subsidiary plans to raise its plastic fuel tank output in Russia to more than 1m units by 2015.

At the same time as announcing its plans in Russia, parent company Plastic Omnium acquired the remaining 40% of its joint venture with Varroc Engineering (Aurangabad / India; www.varrocengg.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 15.03.2012.