“We’re biting off a bit of market share from the others, but not as much as we had expected. It is harder than we had expected. We can’t figure out this year, which has never happened before,” Barbut says.
“We can feel a rebound of the market, but it’s not going smoothly: it either soars and demand is huge, or declines. Our sales, even in 2009-2010, used to be linear or follow an upward trend before, and now one day we have 70 trucks leaving the plant fully loaded and the next we have 40 leaving. I have no explanation for this phenomenon yet.”
The businessman continues manufacturing investments in the hope of gaining market share. As a result, AdePlast will invest EUR2.8 million in a new polystyrene plant in Ploiesti, southern Romania.
AdePlast’s new plant will produce a special type of polystyrene known in the industry as graphite enhanced polystyrene, which is 20% smaller than the standard polystyrene but retains all the insulating qualities. The new facility will be completed by the end of the year and have a production capacity of about 150,000 cubic meters annually.
AdePlast reported a 31% increase in turnover to 58 million lei (EUR13.03 million) on the year in the first five months of 2012. (EUR1=RON4.4508)
(English vision by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)