Six companies have emerged as winners of the “Best Polymer Producers Awards 2016 presented by the Polymers for Europe Alliance established in May 2015 by the plastics processing industry association European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsconverters.eu) to honour the most reliable suppliers – see Plasteurope.com of 29.05.2015. The awards were presented by Ron Marsh, chairman of the alliance, at the EuPC annual meeting in Lyon / France on 3 June 2016.
The overarching recognition for innovation in the survey held from February to mid-May of this year went to Spanish petrochemicals and plastics producer Repsol (Madrid; www.repsol.com) – which also won in the HDPE category. This special award, EuPC said, was designed to underline the importance of innovation for the industry’s future, in line with the meeting’s theme “Innovation Meets the Circular Economy.
Awards were also presented in six polymer categories. Here Repsol was the winner for HDPE, with an 80% approval rating. The award for LDPE was won by LyondellBasell (Rotterdam / The Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com), which garnered 70.8% approval. Winner in the PET category was Indorama (IVL, Bangkok / Thailand; www.indoramaventures.com) with 76% approval. For PP, the winner was Borealis (Vienna / Austria; www.borealisgroup.com), which had 82.5% approval. BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) took the prize as the best PS supplier with 77% approval. For PVC, the newly created Inovyn (London / UK; www.inovyn.com) was the winner, with 82.5% approval.
All polymer users based in Europe were eligible to participate in the voting carried out through the Survey Monkey online voting tool, and the alliance received nearly 250 ratings. Judging in all the categories was based on the five criteria of quality, regulatory compliance, delivery performance, communication and innovation. Participants could select their three best polymer suppliers per polymer type.
Marsh said the results of the survey “demonstrate the strength of feeling of the European polymer users that their voice should be heard, and the Polymers for Europe Alliance seems to represent the perfect platform for that. Alexandre Dangis, EuPC managing director, who expressed satisfaction that all winners were able to accept their awards in person, commented that the initiative “provides a unique insight into the dynamics of the polymer supply chain. “It is a major step towards re-establishing a constructive dialogue and a good communication between suppliers and users of polymers in Europe, he said.
The Polymers for Europe Alliance was established in response to the spate of forces majeures declared for European plastics production facilities last year, which created tension between suppliers and users (PIE reported extensively). This year’s awards were the first. A date for the 2017 awards will be announced in September of this year.
e-Service:
Background information on the “Best Polymer Producers Awards for Europe” as a PDF file
Release Date: 06/09/2016
