8Additives for Polymers March 2011

Contact:Rio Tinto Minerals Asia Pacific, 3 Temasek Avenue, #32-01

Centennial Tower, Singapore 039190. Tel +65 6464 6000,

Web: www.riotintominerals.com

Gabriel-Chemie extends activities in Russia and South Africa

Austria’s Gabriel-Chemie Group reports that it is rapidly expanding its manufacturing

capacity in Russia and is also seeking to strength-en its presence in the country in other ways, including the hiring of additional specialist staff.

The group is represented in Russia by the limited lia-bility company Gabriel-Chemie-Rus-2, a wholly owned subsidiary with production facilities in Dorokhovo, Ruzsky rayon, about 80 km southwest of Moscow, and with sales offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. When the plant was established in 2007 [ADPO, May 2007] it had an initial capacity of 400 tonnes/year, which was increased to 1000 tonnes/year over the next two years. During 2010 capacity has been further ramped up to 2500 tonnes/year to enable the Russian-manufactured range of white masterbatches and additives to be increased. Additional investments were also made in lab equipment. In the course of 2011 the production capac-ity will again be doubled to 5000 tonnes/year.

The company has also invested in new specialist, highly qualified Russian staff, including a new sales director, Dmitry Grigoriev, and a new plant manager, Yury Gribanov. In addition, the group is providing high levels of training for its Russian employees, including training at its production sites in Austria, Germany and elsewhere. ‘Russia is one of our target markets in the next business year and for the future and we will focus on expanding our sales team and consequently improv-ing customer service as well as investing in equipment’, comments Gabriel-Chemie’s CEO Rodolfo Santa Olalla. Development of new products to meet customer’s tech-nical and specific requirements is also on-going.

The company has also identified South Africa as another target market for the short and medium term. It therefore opened a new sales office in the country in September 2010, headed up by Pieter Snyman who has R&D and sales experience concerning polymers, liquid colours and masterbatches.

Contact: Gabriel-Chemie GmbH, Gumpoldskirchen, Austria.

Tel: +43 2252 63630 0, Web: www.gabriel-chemie.com

Or contact: Gabriel-Chemie South Africa, PO Box 1334,

Brackenfell, 7561, Cape Town, South Africa.

Tel: +27 83 450 6784

Huber and Almatis enter into tolling agreement for speciality flame retardants

Atlanta-based Huber Engineered Materials (HEM) and alumina specialist Almatis,

Inc have reached an agreement under which Almatis will toll manufacture for HEM certain speciality hydrate flame retardant products that it previously produced and marketed itself.

HEM becomes the sales and marketing contact for the products with immediate effect and assumes responsibility for technical support. The specific prod-ucts to be toll manufactured include Hydral® 710, Hydral PGA and SpaceRite® grades. ‘The addition of the Almatis product line will further strengthen HEM’s portfolio offering of non-halogen flame retard-ants’, says Jerry Bertram, VP and general manager of HEM’s Industrial Minerals business. Along with HEM’s recent acquisition of the Kemgard® flame

retardant and smoke suppressant business from Sherwin-Williams [ADPO, October 2010], the com-pany now has an extensive line of environmentally friendly products for a variety of applications, Bertram comments. ‘We are also very excited about the oppor-tunity to work with Almatis’ former customers to con-tinue supplying them with the high-performing prod-ucts they know, backed by HEM’s excellent technical expertise and customer support’, he adds.

HEM, a division of J.M. Huber Corp, has supplied flame retardants and smoke suppressants for more than 30 years and produces value-added alumina trihydrate (ATH), magnesium hydroxide (MDH) and molybdate-based products. Almatis came into being in 2004 when Alcoa divested its speciality aluminas business. Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, the company has nine wholly owned and strategically located production facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, India, China and the USA.

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