Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270086
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
RADVA'S RUSSIA PLANT NEARLY IN FULL SWING
Almost.A Radford company's 5-year quest to manufacture building panels in Russia is all but done.
A factory in the Russian city of Pereslavl-Zalessky should be in full operation by the end of March, Radva President Luther Dickens confirmed last week.
In addition, another plant to produce Radva's patented Thermastructure panels is scheduled to open soon in Australia. "We've got personnel at both sites right now," Dickens said.
The Russian factory is owned by Radoslav - a joint venture company of which Radva owns about 31 percent. Three Russian companies also make up Radoslav.
The opening of the factory will cap a 5-year project that began when Radva took part in a building exhibition in Moscow in 1987. It continued through the days of glasnost and the failed Soviet coup.
Dickens said the bulk of the needed machinery is at the factory site now, and the remainder is in route. The shell of the factory has been up for months.
Thermastructure is a high tech building system that employs 4-by-8-foot panels of steel-reinforced plastic in place of traditional wood frame construction. Thermastructure building panels are made of expanded polystyrene - an insulating material resembling Styrofoam, that also is used in packaging and in fast food coffee cups.
Radva dedicated three Thermastructure houses in Pereslavl last summer as models. Pereslavl is about 77 miles north of Moscow.
Dickens said those houses stayed snug during recent cold spells, helping convince the Russians of the building system's worth.
"I'm really high on what's going to happen there," Dickens said. "We feel the product's accepted, the capacity of the plant will be utilized."
The last major barrier to opening the plant was passed last fall, when the U.S. Export-Import Bank guaranteed a $2 million equipment loan to Radoslav. The loan ensured that Radva would be paid for the expensive manufacturing machinery it sold to Radoslav, whatever the project's fate.
The uncertain Russian economy notwithstanding, there already are orders enough to keep the new factory humming once it begins production, Dickens said.
One of the Russian partners in Radoslav wants half the panels for itself - so it can build and market Thermastructure houses on its own. "I don't know if they're going to get it," Dickens said.
Also interested in buying panels is the government of Yaroslavl, the province in which Pereslavl is located, Dickens said.
Dickens said he has little fear the country's current troubles will lead to a general upheaval or otherwise threaten the venture.
"I think the dire predictions of disaster are off the mark. I think the Russians are willing to endure a certain amount of hardship for a free market economy," Dickens said.
Radva expects to get its own share of the profits from the Radoslav venture not in rubles - whose value has been tumbling relative to the dollar - but in raw materials that will not lose their value, Dickens has explained in the past.
Negotiations are under way to build other Thermastructure plants in Russia, including one in St. Petersburg. Ten Russian plants are envisioned in all. "The Russians tend to do things on a fairly large scale," Dickens said.
Radva, which also makes expanded polystyrene packaging, employs some 200 employees and already has plants in Radford and in Portsmouth.
A third plant in Guam, which makes Thermastructure panels, was sold in 1990 and is now a Radva licensee.
The Guam plant was damaged in a typhoon last summer, and has had to be rebuilt.
In addition, Radva announced last fall it had reached a licensing agreement for a Melbourne, Australia company - Q-Line Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd. - to make and distribute Thermastructure as a licensee.
That factory, like the one in Russia, is scheduled to begin operations in March.
"We're in an extremely busy time," Dickens said.