Northfield, Illinois – The growing demand for rigid foam insulation boosted Stepan’s Q2 sales and profit, president and ceo Quinn Stepan said in a conference call this week.
Stepan also revealed the company had signed a deal on a new polyol plant in China, due to be operational in 2016.
The company’s net Q2 2014 income was 7% up on last year’s – rising from $22.7m to $24.3m. The use of polyols in rigid foam insulation and continued market growth in insulated metal panels and CASE applications were key to the rise, Stepan said.
Overall polymer sales volume increased 22% in Q2 2014 compared to Q2 2013 and the company reported healthy polyol sales in the North American region, where 19% more was sold during the last three months than during Q2 2013. In Europe, comparison of the two quarters shows a Q2 2014 sales volume increase of 16% compared to the same quarter in 2013.
Stepan said: “Overall, in polymers, our rigid foam business continued to benefit from the macro trend of greater use of insulation and this helped drive fairly significant growth in North America and Europe.
“Europe also continued to benefit from market growth in insulated metal panels which are used in vertical applications or walls of structures in addition to flat or low slope roof application which makes up a majority of our business,” he added.
