Mr. Michael Bjorn, Borouge’s Vice President of Wire and Cable

Borouge and Borealis are leading suppliers to the worldwide Wire & Cable industry. Both companies enjoy a 50-year experience of providing high quality compounds to customers in the Wire & Cable market across the globe. During the Wire Southeast Asia Bangkok Exhibition, we had a conversation with Mr. Michael Bjorn, Borouge’s Vice President of Wire and Cable, where he briefed us about Borouge’s operations, Technical Capabilities, Plans for Indian Market, Approach towards Wire & Cable Industry and the recent trends in the growing markets.

(Wire & Cable India): Brief us about Borouge?

Michael Bjorn: Borouge manufactures innovative, value creating plastics solutions for the infrastructure (pipe systems, and power and communication cables), automotive and advanced packaging markets. For the Wire & Cable industry we provide different solutions for insulation and physical protection of cables like energy cables, telecommunication cables etc. Together with Borealis, we have more than 50 years of experience in developing high quality compounds and polymers.

WCI: What are the technical capabilities of Borouge and the solutions you offer for the wire and cable industry?

MB: We have a long tradition of producing very clean and efficient XLPE (Cross-Linked Polyethylene) compounds and that’s what we are renowned for in the industry. We provide compounds which help our customers produce high quality cables that end users can use in their installation for a long time.

Remember, cables are something that you produce, install and put in the ground expecting that they will serve for at least 40-50 years. The quality of XLPE compounds and the semi conductor compounds are absolutely paramount to make sure that you have good cables to put underground.

Our customers are making a living from producing cables, and for that we offer them production efficiencies that enable them to either produce more cables, run the machines faster, cut down their scrap or cut down the number of processes and steps during production. We see that this is something recognized by the cable producers around the world and specifically in India where people really understand the value of cutting down the cost and optimizing the operations without compromising on quality.

WCI: What kind of operations you have in India and what are the plans for the Indian market?

MB: We established our base in Mumbai, India, and are handling sales, marketing, and technical service operations from there. The materials are produced in Europe, North America and Abu Dhabi. In 2014, we will expand our manufacturing capacity in Abu Dhabi, and as a part of that we will have a production of LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) which is the base material for XLPE compounds. Furthermore, we will invest in compounding specifically to manufacture XLPE compounds. This operation will be running in the early days of 2014. We will be serving the Indian market faster and more effectively as we are just a few days away from India by ship. India is an important market for us and we see that the Indian cable produces rely on us for their future demands. Our focus is to build good relations with the cable manufacturers.

WCI: What kind of value does Borouge offer to its customers?

MB: We provide two things. First, strong quality based on our history, methodology, and large production of very homogeneous materials that helps the cable producers ensure that their cables will actually work in the field and satisfy the end users with its quality. Second, the production efficiency we offer to optimize the production. Essentially we are helping cable producers in cutting down the cost per meter of the final cables produced.

WCI: What are the recent trends you have witnessed in the wire & cable industry more specific to growing markets like India?

MB: While the growth for the wire and cable industry is above GDP growth in all areas of the World the growth in the Middle East, Asia and India take the lead based on a number of fundamental growth factors, such as population expansion, increased power consumption, urbanization and the need for sustainable energy sources. In a growing market like India you’ll see a number of new cable producers joining the industry due to its attractiveness. To be successful in this business you need to provide quality otherwise the utility organizations will not buy from you in the long term. And what we see across the world is that it is the quality suppliers who will survive. In fact, India has very large established companies and quite a few of them will survive not only in domestic boundaries but as international players also.