CUMING CORPORATION DOUBLES MANUFACTURING CAPACITY IN AVON, MASSACHUSETTS

Cuming Corporation, the Avon, MA-based manufacturer of syntactic foam buoyancy and insulation products, has completed a year-long expansion of its facilities that doubled factory floor space and more than doubled production capacity. The company now operates the largest and most modern factory devoted to the manufacture of these highly specialized products, as well as the most capable and sophisticated hydrostatic testing facility in the world. The $.5 million project was in part funded by a Commonwealth of Massachusetts Industrial Revenue Bond.

Syntactic foam is a strong, lightweight composite material which can be molded into deep water floats and buoys, and which provides excellent thermal insulation for subsea pipelines. The demand for Cuming Corporation's syntactic foam products is increasing as the offshore industry explores for new oil and gas fields in deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere around the world. The new factory has equipment for precisely mixing and molding syntactic foam under vacuum, and for curing the material at high temperature to ensure maximum physical properties and long, reliable service in the demanding marine environment.

Cuming Corporation is the acknowledged leader in syntactic foam materials science, with over thirty years of experience in the design and manufacture of these high technology products. The company's engineers made the very first syntactic foam buoyancy modules for marine riser in 1968, helping to launch the worldwide deepwater exploration for oil and gas, and have been involved in every major offshore advance since then. The present drilling depth record of nearly 8,000 feet was set with Cuming Corporation products. With experience like this, it is only natural that the world's major oil companies look to Cuming Corporation for solutions to their deepest buoyancy and insulation needs.