Investment in North America's non-woven industry remains strong, with investment plans for several new lines announced in the past few months. These investments come after an exciting five-year growth period for the industry. According to Inda, the North American non-woven industry association, between 2012 and 2017, North America added 663000 tons of non-woven production capacity.
In 2017, glatfilter invested more than US $80 million to expand the dry process paper plant in Arkansas, USA, and put it into production in the fourth quarter. The annual capacity of the new plant is about 22000 tons, which can increase the company's total global dry process paper capacity to 130000 tons / year. The factory has become glatfilter's professional production base in the United States and the production center of other low quantitative products.
At the beginning of December 2017, FITESA put into operation a new melt blown production line with a capacity of 24000 tons in the non-woven fabric factory in South Carolina.
In February 2018, suominen decided to launch a new investment growth project worth about 6 million euros at its production plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The investment involves the installation of a new carding machine representing the latest technology on the existing Spunlace production line.
According to the plan, it will enhance the capacity of the plant and further support suominen in the development and supply of new innovative products that can improve life. Once upgraded, the line will improve suominen's ability to provide high value-added non-woven fabrics for home care, personal care and workplace wiping as well as hygiene applications, all of which are the categories that suominen seeks to develop. In addition, the investment provides suominen's customers with a more efficient supply of non-woven materials for baby wipes.
Kimberly Clark Corp. will invest $30 million to expand and improve Berkeley mill, a non-woven fabric plant in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The plant produces raw materials for the company's North American adult and women's care brands, including the depend, poise and u owned by Kotex. The plant also produces Kimberley air filter materials.
On June 7, 2018, norafin industries (Germany) GmbH held a grand opening ceremony of its North American factory in the mills River, North Carolina. The new plant is located in Henderson County, North Carolina, which is norafin's first manufacturing facility in North America.
Norafin (America) Inc. is located in the mills River, North Carolina, with a construction area of about 75000 square feet and an investment of 18 million US dollars. The establishment of manufacturing facilities in North America enables norafin to better serve existing customers, penetrate new markets and provide a solid platform for sustained growth in the future. The company has been selling in Asheville for the past decade. Norafin was founded in East Germany in 1985 and has been headquartered in mildenau, Germany since 1997. Norafin is a professional manufacturer of Spunlaced non-woven fabrics with multi technology applications.
Berry global group, Inc. berry international also recently announced its investment plan for its new spinlace production line, which will use Berry's advanced proprietary technology to produce long wire spunlace materials, will be located in the existing factory in Mooresville, North Carolina, and is expected to provide 17000 tons / year of new capacity for the North American market next year. The investment will focus on high-quality applications in the healthcare, hygiene, home cleaning, food services and industrial wipes markets to meet potential market and customer growth.
'This technology is unique in the market, providing strength, puffiness, high design flexibility, and 3D imaging capabilities for textures and brands.' Scott Tracey, President of Berry's health, health and professional division. 'By combining spinlace with Berry's proprietary apex ® technology, we can migrate customizable 3D images directly into fabrics, providing enhanced product performance, recognition and aesthetic appeal through brand differentiation.'
Berry has announced that it will increase its capacity in February next year, and the new production line should start commercial production in mid-2019.
In April 2017, Ahlstrom osron and munksjo Oyj Minsk completed the merger, and the name of the new company was changed to Ahlstrom munksjo Oyj. In 2017, the sales reached 2.2 billion euros. On June 1 of the same year, Ahlstrom announced that the price of its special non-woven materials used in construction, furniture, health, wound care, clothing and other fields had increased by 3%. However, the head of the company said that he was not worried about the loss of orders, because the market demand was still hot. In September, Ahlstrom completed the renovation of its U.S. plant, which was put into operation shortly after. The plant will be able to produce both filter products and non-woven wallpaper materials, and its production capacity will increase by 200000 tons.
According to the development plan of Ahlstrom munksjo Oyj in 2018, benefiting from the rapid growth of the demand for battery separator in the United States, Ahlstrom will gradually resume its investment in the field of battery separator, and Ahlstrom's U.S. subsidiary will launch a new long-term product development plan in 2018. Ahlstrom munksjo Oyj also plans to divest a small number of existing loss making businesses and respond to the growing demand in the wet towel market, such as investing in new production lines.
In June, albaad, an Israeli manufacturer of wipes and hygiene products, said it would invest $45 million in its production base in Reidsville, North Carolina, to expand its market share in personal care.
From the above, it is not difficult to see that many non-woven companies choose North Carolina as their first choice for investment. First of all, due to historical reasons, North Carolina is the location of the largest textile factory in the United States, and also a powerful textile industry cluster, with more than 700 textile production enterprises. Secondly, its preferential tax and incentive