Jindal Poly Films (JPFL) is stepping up its capacity for oriented film. Encouraged by the response it received at Interpack 2008 and the latest market assessment, the company has decided to install additional capacity for BOPET and BOPP film over the next two years. This will make it the world’s largest BOPP film manufacturer and the largest producer of all oriented film combined.

JPFL, which made its entry in the BOPP film business only in 2003 with an annual capacity of 13,000 MT, grew rapidly to reach an annual capacity of 90,000 MT by 2006. Two new top-of-the-line Dornier lines are under installation and the capacity will go up to 180,000 MT per annum of BOPP film by September this year.

The company will commission six more Dornier BOPP lines in 2009-2010. Three of these (combined capacity of 100,000 MT per annum) will be operational next year and the other three will come on stream in 2010. With this, JPFL will have a total annual capacity of 380,000 MT of BOPP film, some 90,000 MT per annum more than the next largest producer.

The BOPET film business is also witnessing robust growth, especially in the thin film segment that caters mainly to packaging applications. JPFL has decided to increase its annual thin BOPET film capacity from 72,000 MT at present to 150,000 MT by 2010. The total annual BOPET film capacity (which includes a thick film line) will then be 168,000 MT. One line with an annual capacity of 25,000 MT of thin film is expected to start by mid-2009 and two more lines with a combined annual capacity of 53,000 MT are expected to come on stream by January 2010. The last two lines are expected to be fed by a new continuous PET polymerisation plant.

The film lines will be complemented by an annual metallising capacity of 40,000 MT (6 metallisers). A further annual capacity of 10,000 MT is being added with the installation of a new state-of-the-art 3.3 meter wide plasma enhanced metalliser by mid-2009. JPFL also has two PVDC/acrylic offline coating plants for high-barrier and specialised applications.

By 2010, JPFL will be turning out almost 550,000 MT of oriented films annually–all from its facility at Nashik in Maharashtra.