SPC Rubber commits further investment in Wales plant

Westbury, UK – SPC Rubber, has increased investment in its successful Wales-based plant with the installation of a new mixing facility, opening an additional line.

The new 35 litre mixer is the latest investment to the dedicated colour factory in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales. The ultraclean factory was opened by SPC in 2017 to focus exclusively on colour compounds, complementing the company’s technical rubber output from plants located near Bristol, UK, and Barcelona, Spain.

The Wales site has its own technical development laboratory with both analytical and mechanical testing machines. The factory accommodates a range of manufacturing orders, supplying batches from just 5kg to 140kg at a time. The site also has inline filtering of compounds.

The new 35 litre mixer is ideal for production of high quality, superior performance, coloured elastomer compounds. The mixer chamber has full access for cleaning and the mixer has complete cycle and temperature control, offering excellent reproducibility. It is therefore well suited to the mixing of low volume compounds for critical markets

The expansion represents the latest chapter in a story of growth for the successful manufacturer. Paul Hallas SPC MD commented: “We continue to expand the production capability within the UK, despite the challenging conditions in 2020.

Overall the market demand for rubber compounds is strong and the range of applications continuing to rise. Our new mixer is a fantastic addition to the production facility at Maerdy, bridging the gap between our smaller mixing lines and our large one.

He added: “Despite a challenging environment for everyone this year, I believe UK manufacturing companies must continue to invest. Following Brexit we will inevitably be faced with new trading conditions next year and UK manufacturers must strive to continue to be market leaders in their industries.”

During 2020 SPC developed several new coloured aerospace (AMS) and food industry (FDA) elastomer compounds. The 35 litre mixer will provide intermediate batch volume, giving opportunity for cost-effective production level trials of new grades, as well as the on-going supply of compounds against technically demanding standards.

As demand increases, the larger SPC Maerdy K5 140 litre intermeshing rotor offers a perfect option for scaled-up production. It is envisaged these and the 35 litre mixer batch sizes will be of interest to customers in the aerospace, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and oil and gas sectors.