After several years of successful development overseas with its facilities in Brazil (Sao paulo) & USA (Michigan), CONDAT group is looking forward to strengthening its presence in the Asian markets, especially in China, with its innovative and sustainable products. Mr. François Chambellant, China Business Development Director of the 170-year-old company, revealed during an exclusive interaction with Wire & Cable India that they were also working on inventing the most advanced and durable production processes with minimum impact on environment and resources.
Wire & Cable India: Kindly walk us through your business journey, highlighting major milestones and crucial achievements.
François Chambellant: CONDAT group is a family-owned, private company, which was established in 1854. We are celebrating our 170th anniversary this year! We specialize in formulating and producing a wide range of industrial lubricants such as maintenance lubricants and metal-forming lubricants for several industries like wire product applications, metal working, forging, foundry, heat treatment of metals and the glass industry. We always work in tandem with customers to optimize their performance, their overall efficiency and productivity in the minimum possible costs and support them towards a better future.
WCI: Please tell us about your product portfolio related to the wire and cable industry.
FC: CONDAT group offers a wide range of lubricants for the metal forming market, particularly for all processes concerning wire production such as wire drawing, rolling and cold heading. CONDAT lubricants apply to all wire materials like steel, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, tungsten, aluminum or copper alloys. We offer solutions for advanced surface preparation with economic alternatives to phosphate technology. Our range of wire drawing powders is one of the most famous worldwide with our brands VICAFIL and STEELSKIN. Our product portfolio further contains soluble lubricants for wire drawing of electrical cables: from the rod breakdown, multi-pass, single- or multi-wire, enameled and coated wires (tin plated, silver plated, etc). In addition, CONDAT group offers an entire range of complementary products and services such as high service life maintenance lubricants.
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WCI: Tell us about your market footprint, especially in India.
FC: In the last 30 years, CONDAT group has expanded its production facilities all over the world. We established a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility on a green field site at Michigan, to cater to the northern regions of the US in 2000. This was followed by a production facility in Brazil to cover the south of America. Now we are moving forward in Asia, more particularly in China. We set up a new plant – CONDAT Qingdao in the Shandong province of China, which started production in late 2022.
We have been in India for more than 30 years, primarily in the wire industry, thanks to a long-term relationship with USHA Lubes. We are also dealing with other sectors such as forging, metal working, and the glass industry. Our business model involves developing partnerships with highly experienced, well-established local entrepreneurs, to provide high level support and service for our valued end customers.
Future plans include expanding and diversifying our activities globally and specifically in Asian markets
WCI: CONDAT has earned quite a reputation for combining innovation with sustainability. Please comment.
FC: CONDAT group is continuously working on innovation and sustainability. They form an essential part of our growth strategy as we look forward to developing more economic value for our customers in a competitive and sustainable environment. We are constantly innovating to offer advanced technologies with a special focus on their impact. We have been working over the years to eliminate all dangerous substances from our technologies. We select raw materials with a low impact. For the past more than three years, CONDAT group has been receiving the Platinum grade certification, the highest sustainability rating given to a company by EcoVadis, an independent, global provider of business sustainability ratings. Our company is strongly committed to both the social and environmental impact of our activities.
WCI: Please comment on your future plans.
FC: Future plans include expanding and diversifying our activities globally and specifically in Asian markets, thanks to our strong French (European) R&D center and our new facility in China. We have set an industrial agenda for the next six years in China to consolidate our presence there and to learn more about this very typical market where innovation is really fast.
