UFLEX Expands in Egypt & Poland

Published: August 01, 2011

NOIDA, INDIA | UFLEX Group will commision an aluminum oxide coater, dubbed ALOX, on October 6 near Cairo, Egypt, where a 12,000 million tons/yr CPP line already has started up. The ALOX coater will apply a thin, highly transparent coating of aluminium oxide on packaging films to attain moisture and gas barrier properties that rival those of aluminium foils and metallized films. The levels of barrier available from ALOX-coated films are claimed far superior to those provided by other transparent flexible packaging materials.

An 8.7-m-wide, 500 mpm BOPET film line also is being installed, with another plasma-enhanced metallizer slated to come on line this year.

The company also has announced its first European plant near Poznan in central Poland. The first phase of this operation will set up an 8.7-m-wide/500 mpm BOPET film line and a high-barrier plasma enhanced vacuum metallizing line. The film line will be capable of turning out approximately 80 million lb of film annually. The total investment in the first phase will be US$90 million, and the plant is due to start commercial production in mid-2012.