UK AdBlue supplier BlueCat AdBlue Solutions, owned by J&H Bunn Ltd, has announced a long-term partnership agreement with Germany's SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz GmbH (SKWP). Under the agreement J&H Bunn will import ready-made AdBlue solution manufactured by SKWP near Berlin for distribution in the UK and Ireland.

In the longer term, BlueCat has secured a licence from the VDA to manufacture AdBlue at a site to be constructed by J&H Bunn in Teesside in the northeast of England. Production at the site is due to begin in 2007, confirms John Fuller, BlueCat Project Director. Special grade urea prills will be imported from SKWP to make the solution.

SKWP is Germany's largest urea producer and markets AdBlue throughout Europe under its own Blue-Sky brand. The AdBlue supplied to the UK will carry the BlueCat brand though the two companies will cooperate on technical support and marketing. "We have been trading with SKWP for many years so it seemed natural to work together on AdBlue," Fuller said. "We are delighted that we have signed a deal with a CEFIC producer and this deal means that UK hauliers can have access to AdBlue guaranteed to meet the highest quality standards."

BlueCat anticipates that, in the UK, demand for fleet home-base AdBlue supplies in IBCs will continue to dominate over contracts for public filling sites, but that the situation will change as hauliers move to procure Euro 5 SCR vehicles, perhaps somewhat later than their European counterparts.