NEWS
North America machine sales fall in first quarter
Sales of primary plastics machinery in North America showed a slight year-on- year increase in the first quarter of 2023. According to the Plastics Industry Association’s Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES), the value of machinery sales rose 1.6% to reach almost US$346 million. However, this represented a 20% decline compared to the final quarter of 2022. Sales of single-screw
extruders rose by 11%, and those of twin-screw extruder doubled compared to Q1 2022 – while sales of injection moulding machines declined by nearly 3%. Compared with Q4 of 2022, single-screw extruders declined more than 28%, twin-screw extruder fell nearly 15% and injection moulding machine sales fell by 20%. “Despite a weaker
Primary Plastics Machinery Sales, North America Source: Plastics Industry Association, 2023
economic outlook, plastics machinery shipments managed to show year-on- year growth,” said Perc Pineda, chief economist at the organisation. “The current first-quarter ship- ments are comparable to previous quarters during economic expansions.” In the first quarter, US plastics machinery exports fell by nearly 3% to US$229m. Mexico and Canada remained the top export markets, accounting
for more than half of exports (around US$116m). At the same time, imports in- creased by nearly 7% to US$536m in the first quarter. In its quarterly survey, CES found that those expecting market conditions to remain unchanged or improve in the next quarter fell from 35% to 33% – and those expecting unchanged or improved conditions in the next 12 months fell from 45% to 38%. �
www.plasticsindustry.org
Chinaplas visitors up in 2023
Adsale, the organiser of the Chinaplas exhibition, says that nearly 250,000 people visited this year’s show in Shenzhen in April. Official figures show
there were 248,222 attend- ees at the event. This included 28,229 visitors from outside China – in- cluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – which was equivalent to nearly 11.5% of the total. The previous version of the show – held in Shanghai during Covid – attracted 152,134 visitors, with fewer than 2,400 of the coming from beyond China. Attendance this year was
nearly 52% higher than the 2019 Guangzhou event, and 63% higher than the 2021 Shenzhen version, according to the organiser. The show hosted 3,905
exhibitors. �
www.chinaplasonline.com
PPI awards scheme honours pipe projects
An apartment complex in Florida – which uses around 150,000 ft of PEX pipe – is among the winners in this year’s PPI awards. The high-rise building in Orlando has 77 apartments and 36,000 sq ft of office space – and uses two different types of PEX pipe from Uponor. Around 12,600 ft of Wirsbo PEXa pipe is used in the HVAC system, while the domestic water system relies on around 138,000 ft of its AquaPEX pipe. Other project winners included: a
rainwater harvest system in Minnesota using corrugated PP pipe; a potash facility in Canada that used high-pres-
www.pipeandprofile.com
sure steel-reinforced thermoplastic pipe; a 6km HDPE line in Utah that feeds water back into the Great Salt Lake; and a project in South Carolina that used 10,000 fit of HDPE cable- protection conduit. “We had an all-time high number
of projects being submitted this year,” said David Fink, president of PPI. “This reflects the growing use of plastic pipe in so many different areas.” �
www.plasticpipe.org
Right: A potash facility in Canada used 4,000 fit of steel-reinforced composite pipe for a brine transfer line
July/August 2023 | PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION 5
IMAGE: PPI
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