After initiating what it calls "massive capital spending programmes" in 2006, Rehau (HQ: Rehau / Germany; www.rehau.com) plans to spend more than EUR 20m in 2007 to significantly expand its production capacities and logistics structures for the building services engineering industry. In March 2007, the company will begin manufacturing cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) pipes at its plant in Bourges / France. From April 2007, it will add capacity at the German plants in Viechtach and at Triptis, where the logistics centre is also to be enlarged significantly.

Europe is not the only market seeing a boom in plastic pressure pipe systems. Rehau plans to start up a new plant at Cullman, Alabama / USA in March of this year. This project also involves significantly expanding the site´s logistics centre to handle distribution to the North American market.

The reason for the stepped up activity undoubtedly is the current healthy situation in the construction industry; however, it also reflects the ongoing substitution process of PEX for copper in water pipe systems. Apart from new technical developments in plastic pipes, soaring copper prices over the past few years certainly have speeded up the substitution process. Rehau´s competitor Uponor, for example, also recently reported high growth rates for plastic pressure pipe systems – see Plasteurope.com Web of 15.02.2007.

Rehau is one of the major international plastics converters, with sales of more than EUR 1.15 bn in Germany alone and 14,000 employees at 170 sites worldwide. It is a leading supplier of pipes and profiles for the building industry and automotive exteriors parts.