US polyester resins specialist AOC (Collierville, Tennessee; www.aoc-resins.com) has signed an agreement with BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) for the exclusive manufacture of AOC’s unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) product line. “This new relationship will allow AOC to better supply its customers in the growing European market,” said Brian Parker, AOC’s global managing director.

The German group's subsidiary BASF Espanol (Tarragona / Spain) so far had been manufacturing UPR resins for DSM Composite Resins (Schaffhausen / Switzerland; www.dsmcompositeresins.com), but the agreement recently expired.

BASF mostly manufactured standard resins for DSM in Tarragona, but the latter announced that it plans to quit this business in the near future. According to Wilfried Gambade, DSM’s business director Composite Resins & Global Markets, “DSM is investing in specialities, not commodities. Our focus is on innovation in the fields of renewable feedstocks and materials that do not contain any styrene.”