At Chinaplas, one of the world’s largest and most significant trade fairs for plastics and rubbers, in Shenzhen, China, OQ, an integrated energy company from Oman, is showcasing its solid insights and advanced solutions for rigid packaging to help customers across Northeast Asia (NEA) and Southeast Asia (SEA) better capture market demand.

Due to expanding population and growing eco-awareness, the Asia Pacific region dominated the global rigid packaging market in 2022, holding a 39% share of market revenue. Market demand has continued to grow robustly across NEA and SEA countries; in China, the rigid packaging market was valued at USD 16 billion in 2022 and is expected to hit more than USD 56 billion by 2030, representing a 4.7% CAGR from 2023 to 2030. Such strong momentum is enabled by rising concern for food safety and the booming e-commerce sector that drives fast-growing orders for food and beverage delivery. All these factors are translating into surging market demand for rigid packaging that excels in light-weighting, durability, reusability and aesthetics, while packaging manufacturers seek to deliver better production profitability and meet evolving sustainability goals.

To respond to such outstanding trends, OQ is presenting its rigid packaging solutions at Chinaplas, with OQLUBAN HP2151T being the focus. Designed for thin-wall packaging, the highlighted grade’s higher flowability (60MI), faster cooling and less warpage can assist packaging manufacturers in speeding up cycle time by up to 5% for improved productivity. It is also able to deliver up to 15% energy savings and up to 8% CO2 reduction potential during moulding for enhanced sustainability. Together with optimized properties like stronger stiffness, they contribute to thinner-walled packaging for lighter weight and up to 25% lower haze for aesthetic appearance.

OQ’s other preferred rigid packaging solutions presented at the Shenzhen fair include homopolymer OQLUBAN HP1151K, impact co-polymer OQLUBAN EP 2348R, random co-polymer OQLUBAN RP 7204G, and LLDPE OQLUBAN DNDA-8320, with notable advantages such as easy processing, good impact resistance and impact stiffness balance. All of them have been carefully designed and tested by OQ to suit various application scenarios of food and beverage packaging, housewares, and personal and home care containers.

Hellen Huang, General Manager of OQ Marketing (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, noted: “All our solutions result from product development based on market pull, as OQ focuses on the future trends in key markets. We tackle unique challenges by listening to our customer’s business needs and working closely with them to co-create high-value solutions, as we always believe that cooperation is the key to unlocking OQ’s sustained growth.”

Taking OQLUBAN HP2151T as an example, OQ worked with a highly reputable thin-wall packaging manufacturer in China, to continuously optimize formulation and overcome development bottlenecks like warpage, mold releasing and shot short problem during production. The grade is well accepted by the customer. OQ also worked with world-renowned fine chemical producer Milliken, partnering with its Singapore office and Shanghai lab to test and prove the grade’s competitive advantages.

Such customer-centric services and products have now been made available to all OQ customers around the world, facilitated by highly professional regional sales office and technical service teams located in Oman, India, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, UAE and China. And for the NEA and SEA regions, OQ has activated hub solutions to get closer to different markets including China, where it uses multiple shipping lines across four main ports to shorten the delivery cycle to an average transit time of 18-24 days, the shortest lead time from the Middle East to China because of OQ’s strategic location in Sohar.

“Our comprehensive competitiveness is now also improving thanks to our growing service teams and expanding delivery network. Boasting these strengths as well as having noted new opportunities in NEA and SEA, especially in China, we hope to have in-depth communication with Chinese customers and partners at Chinaplas to explore more possibilities of shared valued growth in the rigid packaging industry,” said Affirmed Abdul Rahman Al Tamtami, VP global marketing.

Looking forward, OQ is also expecting two upcoming rigid packaging solutions to further enrich its portfolio, namely impact copolymer OQLUBAN EP2348T and random co-polymer OQLUBAN RP2151T. Intended for injection molding for food packaging, both grades feature high flowability, easy processing, and good impact resistance, with each serving a different application scenario, frozen container or transparent container.