Ashland Performance Materials, a commercial unit of Ashland Inc. (Columbus, Ohio), announced on March 11 the formation of a partnership with Composite Trade, a Russian distribution company, to tap into Russia’s growing demand for composite resins. The new alliance, Ashland Rus, combines Ashland’s world-class resin technology with Composite Trade’s established network and local market knowledge.
“This partnership will place both companies in an ideal position to better serve customers in the growing Russian composites market,” says Rafail Aminov, director general of Composite Trade.
Ashland’s product range, including leading technology in unsaturated polyester resins, fire-retardant resins and gel coats, is said to benefit Russia’s growing building and construction, transportation and marine markets.
With Ashland Rus, Ashland is creating a local platform to make its proven and well established global technology more easily accessible to the market segment of direct and larger accounts. This will be in addition to the current distribution model for Composite Trade and their customers, which will remain unchanged.
“Working together, we can build on our collective strengths and deliver the market-leading innovation, technical expertise and service that our customers expect,” says Stefan Osterwind, commercial vice president, Ashland Performance Materials EMEA and India.
Ashland wants to deliver a high degree of customer orientation and specific knowledge of production processes in the Russian market place as well as superior technical service and product development capabilities. The intent is to create local resins and gelcoats manufacturing capability to further customize products for local markets.
