Superglass’s new owner to double insulation capacity

THE new owner of Superglass plans to double the capacity at the Stirling plant, it was announced today (September 13).
TechnoNICOL will invest between £4 million and £5m to build a new furnace at the plant, raising the annual output capacity of the site to at least 55,000 tonnes, by 2019 or 2020.

This, the company told The Herald, will power the expansion of Superglass around the UK and into western European markets.

TechnoNICOL completed the £8.7 million acquisition of the Scottish firm a few weeks ago. It is a major producer and distributor of insulation systems in Russia, Europe and former Soviet Union states with a network of 47 plants across Russia and Europe, although, so far, its only other one in Western Europe is in Italy.

TechnoNICOL is the world’s second biggest producer of stone wool insulation behind Rockwool, producing 850,000 tonnes per year. Kolesnikov said the opportunity for TechnoNICOL to gain the technology to make insulation made from glass wool was a key attraction behind the Superglass acquisition. “In the next three years the main challenge is to expand business in Scotland to reach 55,000 [tonnes] production on this production site, because one of the main features of our company is low cost products and very high quality.”

Superglass chief executive Ken Munro says that the cash investment provided by TechnoNICOL will “turbocharge” Superglass’ growth trajectory and that the prospect of distributing the Russian company’s diverse range of roofing and insulation products around the UK and Europe was “equally exciting”.

“It’s very exciting to be part of such a formidable organisation in terms of scale. Our challenge is to maintain the agility and flexibility and responsiveness that drove success around the Superglass brand in the UK.”