PFG Fiber Glass starts third furnace in China

Specialty chemicals and glass maker PPG Industries has announced that it has started a third furnace at the PFG Fibre Glass (Kunshan) Co. Ltd. in Kunshan that it jointly owns with Nan Ya Plastics Corp, one of the largest publicly owned industrial corporations in Taiwan. The additional furnace, with 38,000 metric tons of annual capacity, will serve the expanding Asian electronics industries and achieve full production in the coming months.

''Our continued investment in China demonstrates both PPG's commitment to the fibre glass industry and its global leadership in support of customers and markets,'' said Terry Fry, PPG general manager of global electronics and leader of the company's regional fibre glass business. ''State-of-the-art technology in this newly built furnace will save energy and reduce emissions, as part of PPG's efforts to maximize process efficiency and minimise the environmental impact of its manufacturing.''

C F Lee, president of PFG fibre Glass (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., said, ''The printed circuit board industry is rapidly growing and highly concentrated in Asia. Nan Ya Plastics built a vertically integrated production site in Kunshan including resin, copper, glass fabrics, copper-clad laminates and printed circuit boards. With this expansion, we will keep supporting both our and the whole industry's demand.''

Citing PFG's leadership in manufacturing fibre glass yarns for the electronics industry, Dr. Joe Yu, business development director of PPG fibre glass said, ''This furnace will increase our annual capacity to about 110,000 metric tons in China and about 200,000 metric ton in Asia. We expect this expansion will continue to support the electronics and thermoplastics industries.''

PFG fibre Glass (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., founded in 2001 as an equal joint venture between PPG Industries and Nan Ya Plastics, started production in September 2003 and has three furnaces with a combined annual capacity of about 110,000 metric tons of electronic-grade glass yarn and reinforcement-grade glass fiber. The companies also jointly own PFG fibre Glass Corp. in Taiwan, which has three furnaces with production capacity of about 90,000 metric tons, nearly 90 per cent of which is electronic-grade glass yarn.

Pittsburgh-based PPG is a global supplier of paints, coatings, chemicals, optical products, specialty materials, glass and fibre glass, with over150 manufacturing facilities and equity affiliates. Its sales in 2007 were $11.2 billion and those of SigmaKalon, a worldwide coatings producer based in Uithoorn, Netherlands, that PPG acquired in January, had 2007 sales of $2.9 billion.