Industrial coatings manufacturers are reporting that oil and gas and general maintenance segments are key areas with the most growth potential.

 

Looking across all protective segments, Klaus Møller, group VP, group protective marketing  for Hempel said the market for industrial coatings grew by two to three percent in 2013. "There is a surge in upstream O&G possibilities with high offshore construction activity and growing needs in the unconventional arena," he added. "Civil structures grow in all developing markets and so does power generation needs, resulting in good growth rates globally in these segments."

 

Anders Voldsgaard Clausen, group segment marketing manager at Hempel said there was stable growth rates of five to eight percent per year in the power generation segment. He said the most opportunity in terms of growth was in coal, gas and wind in China, coal in India and wind and gas in Europe/Russia and Americas.

 

China is an important region for industrial coatings. AkzoNobel recently completed the expansion of its industrial coatings site in Songjiang near Shanghai in China, doubling annual production capacity and creating the company's biggest plant for packaging coatings in the world. Work started in 2012, when approximately €14 million was invested in the facility to add production lines for packaging coatings and epoxy and polyester resins. Now the largest site of its kind in the region, Songjiang will serve growing consumer demand from a number of key markets.

 

"China remains one of our most important growth markets," explained Conrad Keijzer, member of AkzoNobel's executive committee responsible for performance coatings. "By expanding capacity at our Songjiang site, we are well positioned to capture the ongoing demand from consumer and construction markets."

 

Added AB Ghosh, managing director of AkzoNobel's Industrial Coatings business: "We are very pleased to have started commercial production at the expanded Songjiang site. The extended capabilities and new product lines will not only help us to better serve customers in the country, but will also allow us to supply resins for our own local production of coil and packaging coatings."

 

The Songjiang facility employs close to 300 people and houses AkzoNobel's largest research and development center in China. The company is also expanding its activities in other parts of the country, with work ongoing at sites for Powder Coatings and Decorative Paints in Chengdu, a combined investment of €50 million in one of the fastest growing regions in China. In addition, a new regional office for western China is being inaugurated in Chengdu, which will house employees from several coatings businesses. AkzoNobel currently employs more than 7,400 people in China, including 500 in research and development.

 

AkzoNobel also has announced plans to optimize the manufacturing footprint of its coil coatings sites in Europe and Russia by concentrating production at three strategic sites.

The company intends to improve operational performance by focusing all European manufacturing for the Coil Coatings business on plants in Malmö (Sweden), Lipetsk (Russia) and Hilden (Germany).