Washington Penn Plastic (Washington, Pennsylvania / USA; www.washingtonpennplastic.com) and Uniform Color Company (UCC, Holland, Michigan / USA; www.uniformcolor.com) have applied for a permit to build a new PP compounds and masterbatch plant in Voderady, near Trvana / Slovakia. The two companies plan to invest roughly EUR 8m in the new plant, which is to have a nameplate capacity for 66,000 t/y of PP compounds and 2,270 t/y of masterbatches. Construction is set to start up in February 2011, with the halls scheduled to be completed in August next year. Some 85 workers will find employment at the new plant, located in an industry park near Samsung’s LCD TV production facility.

Both companies are part of the Audia Group (Washington, Pennsylvania / USA) holding. Washington Penn, which specialises in the production of PP compounds, is one of North America’s leading polyolefin compounders with several plants in the US and one in Mexico. UCC operates one facility each in the US and Mexico as well as a plant in Otrokovice / Czech Republic. In addition, it operates a plant together with masterbatch manufacturer Silvergate Plastics (Wrexham, Wales / UK; www.silvergate-plastics.co.uk), a spin-off of British Vita – see Plasteurope.com of 17.07.2008.