Global packaging blow molder Alpla-Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co. KG continues to extend its production network with three new plants being launched by the end of this year.

The firm, based in Hard, Austria, is due to begin operating a new facility for plastics bottle production at Dammam in the Third Industrial City in Jeddah in western Saudi Arabia.

In October, Alpla is reported to have awarded a turnkey construction contract to a local company, Zamil Steel Construction, to build this plant.

Alpla also is set to operate its sixth packaging plant in India when it launches a new facility to manufacture PET bottles, caps and closures at Hosur in the southern India state of Tamil Nadu.

Currently, the blow molder runs three other plants at the industrial center of Baddi, in the far northern state of Himachal Pradesh, with one each located in the central city of Hyderabad and in Sitarganj, also in northern India.

In Mexico, where the company has 21 base and in-house bottle molding plants, it is also due to operate a new production unit established in the western Pacific port city of Acapulco. Alpla is a major supplier to Coca-Cola bottlers in Mexico.

Its three additional plants will take its total network to 160 across 40 countries worldwide. Last year, the Austrian extrusion, stretch and injection blow molder and injection molder recorded annual sales of more than 3.13 billion euros and employs a total of 16,000 globally.

Alpla Inc., the company's unit based in McDonough, Ga., ranked No. 4 in Plastics News'most recent survey of North American blow molders, with sales of $982.3 million.