INDEVCO Sets Up US Plastics Factory

Lebanese packaging conglomerate INDEVCO Group is investing at least $13m (€11.47m)in a plastics factory in Texas, focusing on packaging for the petrochemical industry, according to the company and local economic development officials.

“For the past seven years, INDEVCO has established a significant presence in the US, serving the petrochemical industry with imported flexible packaging from member companies,” the company said in a statement. “With the expected surge in polymer exports, INDEVCO decided to set up a direct manufacturing presence in the US to provide the petrochemical market with a one-stop shop for its packaging needs.”

The statement did not provide details of the investment but Susan Mazarakes-Gill, executive director of the Longview Economic Development Corp., said the company committed to spend $13.2m (€11.7m) over three years and hire 18 employees, in return for up to $650,000 (€573,771) in incentive payments from LEDC.

INDEVCO plans to move into what was previously a Bemis Co. Inc. plastics plant, she said. Bemis closed the polyethylene film plant in 2012.

“We are excited to establish a leading edge manufacturing presence in the US,” said Robert Laird, executive vice president of operations for INDEVCO Plastics. “Our Longview facility will be well equipped to deliver our customers a high-quality, cost-efficient and cutting-edge packaging solution.”

The company said having plastics manufacturing in the “two lowest feedstock cost areas of the world,” the US and the Middle East, would give it advantages.

INDEVCO Group already has sizable paper packaging and paper manufacturing operations in the United States, and large flexible plastics packaging and consumer product manufacturing operations throughout the Middle East. It set up a joint venture in 2009 with Exopack Holding Corp. of Spartanburg, S.C., but that apparently only involved importing coextruded flexible packaging film from Indevco factories in Lebanon.

Privately owned INDEVCO Group employs 10,250 worldwide. Set up in 1955, it also has divisions that make packaging machinery, computer numerically controlled machined parts, automation and power and renewable energy products solution,” said Robert Laird, Executive Vice President of Operations.

About INDEVCO Group

Established in 1955, privately-owned INDEVCO Group currently employs over 10,250 employees in 72 companies located across the world. The group’s 51 manufacturing plants are situated in the USA, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Ghana, Iraq and Cyprus, while 21 commercial companies are located throughout Europe, Africa and South Asia.
INDEVCO Group’s products include paper and plastic flexible packaging, corrugated containers and displays, consumer and away-from-home disposables, jumbo tissue, and energy solutions. INDEVCO’s current operations in the U.S. include timber and lumber operations, kraft linerboard and recycled corrugating medium paper mills, corrugated containers, corrugated sheet and sheet feeder plants, and  bio-mass power plants.