The acquisition joins Pikes Peak Plastics and Altratek in a new plastics injection molding company serving the industrial, energy, electronics, medical, telecommunications, and automotive industries.

A concurrent move will be to expand production of sodium hydrogen sulfide, a key raw material for PPS resin. Toray would thereby solidify its position as a cost-competitive, integrated manufacturer of everything from raw materials through resins.

Stephen has been with PlasticsToday and its preceding publications Modern Plastics and Injection Molding since 1992, throughout this time based in the Asia Pacific region, including stints in Japan, Australia, and his current location Singapore. His current beat focuses on automotive. Stephen is an avid folding bicycle rider, often taking his bike on overseas business trips, and is a proud dachshund owner.

Tide Rock said in the news release announcing the acquisition of PMT that it will continue to actively invest across sub-component manufacturing industries, in addition to other manufacturing, distribution, business services companies.

PPS resin is a high-performance engineering plastic. Key benefits are heat and chemical resistance, mechanical strength, and flame retardance. Applications include electrical components, electric vehicles, electrical and electronic devices, and housing-related parts. Applications continue to broaden. Toray decided to boost capacity at Toray Advanced Materials Korea to cater to a projected 6% growth in annual global demand for PPS resin compounds.

During the past couple of years, PMT has made considerable investments in its business and, as of September, forecast a double-digit increase in sales in 2021. Last year, it took delivery of 10 new injection molding machines — an outlay of close to $1 million — to support key customers in the telecommunications, medical device, and electrical sectors. In 2020, it expanded its footprint in El Paso by 39,000 square feet for a total of almost 100,000 square feet. The previous year it made a million-dollar investment in new vertical and horizontal presses.

“The acquisition of PMT allows us to expand our footprint within the injection molding sector,” said group CEO Michael Engler. “We now can serve customers from multiple strategic locations, each with a highly skilled workforce and 95 total molding machines ranging from 20 to 500 tons. PMT diversifies our customer base, and also provides the platform for continued growth.”

Certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and IATF 16949, PMT manufactures precision-engineered, injection-molded plastic components and provides single-source molding from initial customer design to high-volume production. The company has nearly 50 years of experience serving an array of markets, including electrical, telecommunications, medical device, and automotive. Charles A. Sholtis, former owner and CEO of PMT, will stay on as an advisor to the company, said the announcement.

Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc. plans to increase annual production capacity for Torelina polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) resin by 5,000 tonnes at a plant in Gunsan, Korea, from December 2024. The Toray Group’s combined PPS manufacturing capacity at this facility and the Tokai Plant in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, will thereby rise to a world-leading 32,600 tonnes/year.

Toray Group is a comprehensive manufacturer of PPS not just for compounds but also for films and fibers. It is the world’s largest player in this field.

Japan’s Toray Industries and Idemitsu Kosan plan to develop a supply chain for acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resin based on biomass styrene monomer derived from biomass naphtha. Idemitsu will leverage the mass balance method to manufacture biomass styrene monomer that will be fed to Toray’s Chiba plant for polymerization of biomass-derived ABS resin starting in October this year. Both Idemitsu and Toray are striving to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

In addition to the aforementioned companies, Tide Rock’s plastics manufacturing and electro-mechanical contract manufacturing portfolio includes Interconnect Solutions Co. and Plastics Design and Manufacturing.

Toray Advanced Materials Korea will supply PPS resin not consumed domestically to Toray Group compounding sites in the United States, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, and other regions as part of an effort to expand its global business.

Toray Industries and Idemitsu Kosan are teaming up to produce biomass-derived styrenic resin, while Toray is adding capacity for PPS engineering resin.

Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

“PMT built a solid foundation as a solutions provider over nearly five decades,” said Sholtis. “I look forward to having the ability to expand our capabilities and capacity as a made-in-USA manufacturer. We have a longstanding reputation as a leading technical injection molder, from our beginnings as a family-founded business in New England to our relocation in 2003 to the US/Mexico border region. We decided to partner with Tide Rock to be able to achieve the next level of growth,” said Sholtis.

Toray’s ABS resin is used in a variety of industries such as automotive, consumer electronics, and medical devices, for which it offers transparent grades.

Tide Rock Holdings has added another asset to its plastics manufacturing portfolio with the acquisition of Plastic Molding Technology (PMT). A full-service precision injection molding company located in El Paso, TX, PMT joins Pikes Peak Plastics and Altratek, which the San Diego–based holding company purchased in November 2021, in a new plastics injection molding group that serves the industrial, energy, electronics, medical, telecommunications, and automotive industries.