Fuchs Petrolub announced that its Australian subsidiary will build a lubricant blending plant in Beresfield, New South Wales, Australia, to replace an existing facility in Wickham. Officials said the new plant will be larger and will be in a better location.
The existing site in Wickham was too small to expand, so we made the decision to move to the new Beresfield site, Fuchs Lubricants (Australasia) Managing Director Wayne Hoiles said in a March 26 statement. He added that the new site will allow us maintain our experienced workforce and increase our production capacity and operational efficiencies to better service our key customer base in New South Wales and Queensland.
Fuchs, which is based in Mannheim, Germany, declined to disclose the cost of the project or the capacities of either plant. Having just begun to acquire the necessary land, the company said it plans to start construction in mid-2015 and to finish a year later. The new plant will be built on a 25,000 square meter greenfield site, the company said.
Fuchs acknowledged that the trend in Australias lubricant industry – along with the overall economy – has been for companies to close local factories while shifting production to overseas locations.
While such a significant portion of Australias manufacturing is moving offshore, we have focused on growing our business in Australia and New Zealand, particularly in high demand areas, Hoiles said. Officials singled out Australias mining industry as a customer group to which the new plant will cater.
Fuchs also operates a blending plant adjacent to its Australia headquarters and research center in Melbourne.