GFL takes aim at North American FKM market

BEACHWOOD, Ohio—An Indian materials firm has hired a rubber industry veteran to help the company introduce its line of fluoroelastomers into North America.

Brian Barkes was hired in mid-March as the North American general manager of GFL Americas L.L.C., the U.S. subsidiary of India's Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd.

Barkes most recently had worked for five years as business development manager for Trostel Ltd.'s compounding business, which now is owned by Preferred Compounding. He started his career as a chemist, with stints at Uniroyal Plastics, Nishakawa Standard and Gates Corp., before turning to the sales side of the business and working with FKMs and other fluoropolymers for six years at Solvay Solexis.

A recruiter contacted Barkes on GFL's behalf, and he learned that the Indian firm last October had hired his old colleague Gabriele Sanvito as global technical manager for the firm's Fluonox-brand FKMs. Sanvito has 20 years of experience with FKMs at Solvay and its predecessor firm Ausimont.

"When I heard that, that carried a lot of weight for me as a technical resource as well as someone knowing customers in the market," said Barkes, who also currently serves as assistant treasurer for the ACS Rubber Division. He discussed his new position during the spring Rubber Division meeting in Beachwood, Ohio.

Shortly after joining GFL, he made a visit to the firm's headquarters in India and was pleased with what he saw. "They had a real commitment to safety," Barkes said. "Also, many of the staff there had advanced degrees, yet they were a very young staff. The average age probably was 30, and they were very eager to learn."

Road to FKMs

GFL is part of the Inox Group, a $3 billion chemical company in India of which GFL accounts for about $450 million, he said. It started making PTFE materials a decade ago and has been selling them into the U.S. for about five or six years, according to Barkes. It has compounding for PTFEs in Rockdale, Texas, along with warehousing there and in New Jersey.

In 2015 the firm started producing FKMs at one of its two factories in Gujarat, India, with annual capacity of 2,000 metric tons. Before entering North America, GFL first looked at penetrating the Indian market and getting qualified with some of the European OEMs.

"I think they wanted to first learn and make improvements and changes based on input from those markets," Barkes said. The firm received good feedback from the large OEMs—many of those being global accounts with potential for U.S. penetration, and the decision was made to target North America, he said.

In his presentation at the India headquarters and the European office in Germany, Barkes said he talked about key customers with the U.S.—identified global players GFL already was doing business with, and how that would translate over to this continent.

Barkes said there essentially are three main "buckets" of potential customers for FKMs: large OEMs that mix internally; custom mixers, some that concentrate solely on FKMs; and some end users that mostly buy from custom mixers, but that may also want to own a recipe or need technical help with a formulation.

The FKM market has shifted over the past decade, he said, from one dominated by bisphenol-based fluoroelastomers, to where peroxide-based FKMs has grown to equal or surpass the bisphenol materials. The change primarily was caused by changes in automotive fluids where peroxide FKMs were needed.

Tackling North America

Automotive accounts for about 65 percent of FKM usage, with other markets being oil and gas, the chemical process industry, aerospace and heavy engines.

"From a technology standpoint and what's in the market already, there are a lot of people right now that have bisphenol technology, and only a handful of players who have good peroxide technology," Barkes said. "I'll probably be leading more with our peroxide product, then maybe backfill the bisphenol lines as people get used to us and get used to buying from us."

In trying to make inroads into a new region, he said potential customers typically will tell you which grades they might be interested in based on your product selection guide and on projects they're working on. GFL then will provide samples, letting the prospect mix and mold it to get a feel for the materials.

"They may be looking for backfill on products where they might have just one source," he said. "Or sometimes they may have a specific application they want to test for. After initial sampling, there's always a kind of a 'wait and see' stage. And then you get feedback based on what they've tested."

GFL learned a lot about the FKM market, Barkes said, as it penetrated the Indian market and sought qualifications in Europe. The firm understands that unlike PTFEs, there is a longer gestation period as potential customers evaluate and test materials, particularly with automotive applications.

Even with the obstacles, he is confident GFL can carve out a place in the North American market. "Based on what I learned regarding some of our technologies and what our capabilities are, I think we have a good group," he said. "Obviously, we're still in the learning stage. At the same time, I think a number of things have already been addressed over the last couple of years in learning customer needs and what's important on the FKM side."

He added that GFL isn't looking to take market share by being a low-cost leader, but rather will offer prices more in line with those of the traditional major players in FKMs, firms such as 3M, Chemours, Solvay and Daikin. The warehousing capacity at the Texas and New Jersey sites also will aid in quick turnaround for orders.