With the slogan "Creating tomorrow", UBE Europe GmbH (Immermannstr. 65 B, D-40210 Düsseldorf) gave its first press conference for European plastics journalists ahead of K '98. The press was told that one of the goals of UBE's presentation at the world's biggest plastics fair was to present the company's European activities to their best advantage. Founded in 1987, this European subsidiary of the Japanese parent, UBE Industries Ltd., Tokyo, was now achieving annual sales of around DEM 80m with chemical raw materials, engineering thermoplastics and plastics machinery. In this connection, UBE also gave details of its cooperation with Hanna. UBE would be setting up a joint company by the end of 1998 with the Hanna subsidiary, Theodor Bergmann Kunststoffwerke GmbH (Adolf-Dambach-Str. 2-4, D-76571 Gaggenau). The task of the new firm was to harmonize European production and implement quality assurance procedures. Apart from this, Bruno de Bievre, who is responsible at UBE Europe for engineering plastics, made it clear that Bergmann will continue to also market its own compounds.

According to the company's internal statistics, UBE is the world's third largest caprolactam manufacturer, with a 9% share of the market. The company has production facilities for the polyamide pre-products in Japan, Thailand and Spain. At the press conference on June 19 in Luxembourg, the journalists were told that UBE had also been established in Europe as a polyamide manufacturer – especially PA 12 – for some time, and was acknowledged for its quality products. The company took advantage of the opportunity to present for the first time a new polyamide 12 generation, which will be marketed with various grades under the name "Ubesta". All the grades are based on the pre-product laurolactam (LLC). As Marketing Manager Frank Hormann explained, UBE was the only company to be polymerizing this product throughout the world in a continuous process. This guaranteed high quality and meant that the material was suitable for particularly demanding applications such as compressed air hoses in the truck industry. – Detailed press release with technical details: PIE-No. 42751.

Above all, the company emphasized that it not only had something to offer European customers in the field of thermoplastics (PE, PP, POM, PA), but was also very active in the machine and plant sector. These operations had, however, only so far become recognized in Asia and America. UBE's standard programme includes injection moulding machines with a locking force of between 3,500 and 60,000 kN. At K'98, the company will also be showing the "Dieprest Moulding" process it has developed in-house. This is an in-mold lamination process particularly suitable for the production of automotive interior components (e.g. rear-window shelves, door liners etc.).

READER SERVICE: Company profile brochure UBE PIE-No. 42752 – Collection of statements on UBE's European presentation: PIE-No. 42753.