The GCC’s plastic industry honoured winners of the 5th Plastics Excellence Awards 2015, an initiative of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA), at a gala event in Dubai, UAE, last night.

Sponsored by Borouge, the GPCA Plastics Excellence Awards recognise outstanding initiatives in plastics conversion, plastics engineering and product development by companies and individuals from the Arabian Gulf region.

The awards are part of GPCA’s aspirations and continuous contributions to the enhancement of the region’s plastics industry, a statement said.

The winners were honoured at a gala dinner held as part of the 6th Plasticon conference in Dubai.

Award recipients were chosen from 39 applications by a jury that included top executives from Borouge, Tasnee and Sabic.

The awardees are:

Best joint development of a new product/ application by a resin producer and plastic converter:  Winner: Orpic, Oman, together with Skaps and other national and international converters (PP staple fiber grade with enhanced tenacity and elongation for geotextile applications); Runners-up: Sabic and Saudi Mais, Saudi Arabia (using Sabic’s PS grade for Saudi Mais’ nebulizer head)
Best Plastic Products and Processes: Winner: Equate, Kuwait (innovative LLDPE product with high clarity and low blocking); Runners-up: Reifenhäuser and Napco, Saudi Arabia (evolution of an ultra cool FFS blown film system)
Best Researcher : Winner: Dr Orass Hamed, from Sabic’s R&D Center, Saudi Arabia (polyolefin catalysis); Runners-up: Dr Kumar Yadav and Dr Hau Qua, Nipras Tasnee, Saudi Arabia (conducting polyolefin: a way for commodity converting into specialty polyolefin)
Student competition – Fikra: Rising Stars of the Plastics Industry: Winner: Rayan Zakaria Mubarak Al-Ahmadi and Khaleed Saleah Al-Mosalam, trainees in Diploma course of Plastics Fabrication Technology, Higher Institute of Plastics Fabrication, Saudi Arabia (eliminating long spues from injection molds); Runners up: Sultan Al-Otaibi and Omar Al-Enezi (development of injection molding method of elimination of a weld-line)