Firestone Building Products EMEA (Zaventem / Belgium; www.firestonebpe.com), a subsidiary of Bridgestone (Tokyo / Japan; www.bridgestone.com), has opened its first plant in Europe. The facility is in Heinsberg / Germany, close to the Dutch border, and will produce "Resista AK" brand polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation panels. There will be around 20 employees in Heinsberg. Capacity and investment figures have not been disclosed. The managing director of Europe and Asia for Firestone Building Products, Philip Moors, said "demand for building products continues to grow in Germany and throughout Europe."

Firestone Building Products is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee / USA and currently operates 15 plants across the world and sells approximately 90m m² of insulation materials each year. In addition to insulation boards, its portfolio includes roofing systems and accessories, daylighting systems, pond liners, geomembranes and silicone and acrylic liquid coatings. Resista AK panels are made of a closed-cell PIR foam core laminated on both sides with a gastight multilayered aluminium complex.