EXPANDING HORIZONS Poland’s Polwax is already the country’s largest producer of paraffin and paraffin derivatives. Now it has set its sights on the European market for paraffin and waxes for industry. Peter Mercer reports.
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olwax is Poland’s leading producer of paraffin, candles, waxes and speciality paraffin compositions and one of the largest companies in the industry in Europe. It was established in its current form in 2012 when Krokus Private Equity acquired a majority holding In Lotos Parafiny from Poland’s Lotos Group and, together with the management, set up the new company under the Polwax name. Headquartered in Jaslo, in southeastern Poland, and with a second production plant at Czechowice-Dziedzice, Polwax today produces a wide range of standard and low-oil paraffins, waxes and ceresin, candles and grave lights as well as specially developed
paraffin products for the paper, food, rubber and packaging industries and for agriculture. Polwax’s standard paraffin (with an oil content of up to 1.1 per cent) is a basic raw material for candles and an essential feedstock for the paint, textiles and paper industries. Its low oil paraffin (with an oil content not exceeding 0.5 per cent) is used to produce high-quality candles and for the manufacture of impregnating and protective products used in the chemical industry and in other industries. Like standard paraffin is it also widely used in the paint, paper and textile industries. The company’s waxes and ceresin products are used by many industries, including
the dairy industry, for cheese coatings, the poultry industry, for de-feathering and the food industry, for paper packaging that comes into contact with food products. Industrial applications of Polwax paraffins include wood preservation and kindling production and a new highly specialised product, WOSKOP, has been designed specifically for the rubber industry where it is used in the manufacture of tyres to help to resist the degradation effects of ozone etc. The company’s Agrowax is used in the agricultural industry as an anti-caking agent to prevent lumping of fertiliser granules and its Ceresine and green wax protects seedlings against moisture loss.
