2020 was a record year for Unigel and its Mexican subsidiary, Plastiglas, driven by the global demand for acrylic sheets. How has business been in 2021?

Business in 2021 has been healthy, but we have however seen a decrease in demand from 2020. The consumption of acrylic sheets today is still higher than in 2019, but not as high as in 2020. The markets in the US, Canada and Mexico bought huge inventories in 2020, and the demand started to level out again as the Covid crisis became more under control. Although inventories remain high, the markets Unigel Mexico serves are still healthy.

Being a manufacturer of chemicals or plastics, you need small amounts of raw materials which are not necessarily available locally. Unigel has experienced challenges obtaining some pigments over the past year, but fortunately we did not have to stop production at any time. Imported raw materials today are substantially more expensive and take longer to reach us, but there has been no shortage.

Unigel’s new plant in Mexico for the production of extruded sheets opened in December 2020. What have been the developments at this facility since opening?

Today, Unigel is producing extruded sheets in Mexico, but at a lower capacity than expected as customer inventories for this product are still high due to their intake in 2020. However, we are currently in the process of developing specialty grade extruded acrylic sheets such as impact grade, framing grade, and collars, because our current lower production levels has given the company the time to produce small amounts of specialty products and start testing the demand in the market for these products. 

Can you elaborate on Unigel’s R&D efforts to produce specialty grade and solid surface products?

Unigel currently has several R&D projects ongoing. One project called Clean Green Cast is already in production where we are using 100% recycled PMMA. Sustainability and using recycled materials is a worldwide trend and fortunately acrylic is an easily recyclable material. We are recovering acrylic scraps from our customers and our own operations and converting them back into PMMA resin to be reused for the production of sheets.

What are your thoughts on the proposed energy and electricity reforms in Mexico?

The proposed governmental reforms are extremely unfortunate, especially from an investment point of view. Considering the current prices of importing from Asia due to logistics bottlenecks, now should be the time to invest in Mexico, but the uncertainty surrounding the reforms have the consequence that people are thinking twice about making investments into the country. Furthermore, it is important that the government does not decide to produce all the electricity themselves through burning fuel oil, specifically in light of the global transition effort towards greener and cleaner energies. Plastiglas has developed environmental energy projects, but we are now thinking twice about implementing these as there is too much uncertainty in the near term.

The magazine Expansión listed Plastiglas as one of the Top Super Companies of 2021 for its innovative focus on human resources. Can you explain your policy for attracting and retaining talent?

I believe that Plastiglas is a friendly working place, and we have employees that have been working for the group for 20, 30, and even 40 years. We incentivize our people, recognize their work, and create a favorable working environment, resulting in our employees’ happiness in the workplace. In a time where many companies where downscaling due to economic pressures caused by the pandemic, Plastiglas was growing and had to hire more people. I believe that the company is recognized as a safe place to work at where everyone is accepted, well looked after, and where they can grow.

How would you define Unigel’s objectives in Mexico for the coming years, including how to increase production while at the same time reducing carbon emissions?

Producing more recycled products is key in the quest to lower carbon emissions. Unigel is currently investing in increasing the capacity of its RMMA unit so that we can produce more acrylic sheets using recycled material. In the future, we want to be producing RMMA at such a level that the challenge is actually importing more scrap from other countries.

In terms of our objectives for 2022, we would like to see our extruded sheet line producing at full capacity. We also hope that Unigel’s R&D projects will have materialized by the end of the year so that we will be producing impact grade and framing grade extruded sheets to increase the value of our product mix.