OMEGA Packing recently worked with a major spirits brand in Central America that was looking for lightweight bottles for its spirit bottle. OMEGA Packing, a Panamanian industrial engineering consultancy, invested in SIPA technology and purchased an XTRA rotary stretch blow moulding system to produce bottles for the rum and spirits market.

XTRA is a concentration of technology that offers several key benefits: it is a system with the industry's highest output per barrel (bph), it can use 25% less energy to produce Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) containers, and it can produce 100% user-friendly PET bottles. The new lightweight packaging is produced on a six-cavity XTRA 6, which produces four-size bottles. It achieves outputs of up to 15,000 bph. The pre-designed model it uses is actually designed by the company (SIPA) itself.

The spirit bottle was previously made from PET Bottles, but thanks to the high performance of the XTRA rotary blow molding system and its high precision preform or bottle manipulation, it can now produce even lightweight PET Bottles. Therefore, OMEGA Packing has invested in SIPA Technology, as the company can take full advantage of complete packaging development to achieve high performance with low-weight PET bottles for the spirit.

PET bottles are generally made from two main raw materials, Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) and Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG). However, the market for PET bottles seems to have slowed down in the American market. The reason for this is the unfavorable market sentiment due to the fear of recession in the US market. As a result, consumer spending has been curtailed, particularly on non-essential items. As a result, the PET bottle market in the US seems to have weakened, leading to an overabundance of stock at distributors and retailers.

OMEGA Packing welcomed SIPA to the Latin American market, which operates throughout Central America and the Caribe. OMEGA Packing has already purchased SIPA bottle-making equipment for other regional projects. However, the decision to acquire XTRA 6 was made because SIPA has a strong team of technicians and spare parts in stock, which can be easily available to the OMEGA company.

As a result, OMEGA and SIPA have been working together to produce lightweight rum and spirits bottles using XTRA rotary stretch blow moulding system. The decision to purchase the XTRA system was made easier because SIPA already had a strong team of technicians and a good availability of spare parts for the machines.