Eastman Boosting Film Production in Virginia

Eastman Chemical Co. is growing its plastic films production with a new line in Martinsville, Va., in a move that company officials are calling its largest film expansion to date.

The expansion will increase production of high performance films for the automotive and architcetural markets sold under the Llumar and Suntek brand names, officials with Eastman in Kingsport, Tenn., said in a May 30 news release. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year and will increase capacity for both paint protection films and window films, they added.

The move will create 15 new jobs in Martinsville, and represents an investment of $11.7 million. That is in addition to a $40 million investment that Eastman made there in late 2013.

"This expansion positions Eastman to meet the great growth in demand for window and paint protection films we're seeing from our customers around the world," said Travis Smith, performance films vice president and general manager, in the release.

"We see exciting growth potential for our portfolio of films and our dealer network," aded performance films commercial director Darrell Reed. "We're making these investments in product innovation, manufacturing capacity, and marketing and support services to help our customers provide high-quality products to meet the needs of consumers and ultimately to allow our customers to further differentiate and grow their business."

Performance Films is a part of Eastman's Advanced Materials business segment, which accounted for almost 27 percent of the firm's $9 billion sales total in 2016.