The date for startup of the new 60:40 joint venture in unsaturated polyester (UP) resins joining the market's previous no. 1 and no. 2 players, DSM (NL-6401 JH Heerlen) and BASF AG (HQ: D-67506 Ludwigshafen), has been set for 1 January 1997. The EU is expected to give the green light shortly. The new market leader, DSM-BASF Structural Resins (NL-8000 AA Zwolle), headed by DSM's John Prooi as managing director and BASF's former reactive resins business unit manager for application technology and marketing Dr. Friedrich Seitz, will employ 550 people and will have annual sales of DM 450m.

Production facilities are already in place at DSM plants in Schoonebeek (The Netherlands), Filago (Italy), Ellesmere Port (UK), Compiegene (France) and Landskrona (Sweden), and at BASF's Ludwigshafen (Germany) and Tarragona (Spain) works. As well as creating economies of scale for the participants, the pooling of the Dutch and German groups' combined strengths could improve the competitive position of UP resins compared with aluminium and steel for reinforcement applications, DSM and BASF said.