Canada’s Heartland Polymers makes NPE debut
Canadian Plastics
Canadian Plastics Materials NPE2024One of the newest entrants to the polypropylene market, Heartland brought its entire sales team to the brand’s first-ever NPE trade show.
The Heartland Polymers team at NPE2024. Photo Credit: Heartland Polymers
A year after beginning production of propylene monomer at a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant in Strathcona County, Alta., Calgary-based Heartland Polymers got a proper introduction to the international plastics industry as a first-time exhibitor at NPE2024.
The material supplier is one of the newest entrants to the polypropylene (PP) market and North America’s only single-site PDH operation, in one of the top propane producing regions in the world.
“NPE2024 was an important milestone for us,” said Yonas Kebede, the company’s Polypropylene Sales & Marketing Director. “We were still building our plant during NPE2018, and the subsequent event was cancelled, so we were excited to bring our entire sales team together and debut the brand in one location where the entire industry comes together.” Overall, Kebede said, the Heartland sales team at the booth found NPE2014 to be a well-run event. “Our team made great connections with the industry, and it was a great momentum boost for the rest of the year,” he said. “You only get to be a new entrant to the market once, and it’s not something we take for granted.”
Heartland used the show to unveil its new random co-polymer product, which is said to be well-suited for the food and packaging industry. “It drew significant interest,” Kebede said. As with Heartland’s PP offerings, its random co-polymers can be shipped virtually anywhere, as the company’s operation has direct rail service through CPKC which provides access to all major ports and hubs across North America. Heartland also operates a storage facility in Davenport, Iowa, to help ensure reliable access to supply and quick shipping times to customers in the U.S.
“It gets cold up in Canada, but our operation really isn’t subject to weather-related outages,” Kebede said. “Besides offering a high-quality PP, we are also able to help customers during unexpected interruptions in supply in the U.S. Gulf Coast.”
Heartland’s PP plant has annual production capacity of almost 1.2 billion pounds. Before the PDH plant started up, the firm was making PP with PGP feedstock from parent company Inter Pipeline’s natural gas liquids (NGL) business, which had been Canada’s only PGP producer prior to the new Heartland PDH unit.