Albis Plastics and William Barnet & Son launch U.S. joint venture

Albis Plastic GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) announced a joint venture on Sept. 1 with William Barnet & Son LLC, a specialist in the production, recycling and trading of fibers, yarn and polymers. The new company, Albis Barnet Polymers LLC, will be majority owned by Albis Plastic and located in Duncan, SC, the company’s headquarters.

Albis Barnet Polymers LLC will recycle, repelletize and market post-industrial raw materials as well as use them in the compounding of Altech Eco products. This move sees both Albis and Barnet investing heavily in recycling technology and the product offering of sustainable compounds in near-to-prime quality.

“The joint venture unites the strengths of both partner companies: A direct market access point to post-industrial raw material qualities, repelletizing expertise as well as compounding and product development competence,” explained Phillip O. Krahn, CEO at Albis Plastic. “This concept will give us a competitive edge that we will implement and take advantage of globally to serve our customers even better in the future.”

Albis plans to construct a production facility for engineering compounds at the joint venture site, which can initially handle a capacity of 15,000 tons per year. Completion is planned for the second quarter of 2017. Albis Plastic will also be taking over Barnet Europe’s existing polymer business, including production sites in Obemburg, Germany, and Humenne, Slovakia.

Barnet produces and supplies many different resins including polyester, nylon 6, nylon 66, acrylic, polypropylene and Viscose. The company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the United States, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovakia, China, Hong Kong, India and Costa Rica.

Through these investments, Albis will increase its global production capacity (compounding and repelletization) by 60,000 tons per year. The acquisitions in Europe will add 15,000 tons per year. In North America, the joint venture will add 30,000 tons per year with an additional 15,000 tons coming from investments at the manufacturing site in Duncan.

South Carolina is a hub of the U.S. automobile industry, making the site an ideal point of access to an important target market, said Albis’ release.