Orlando, Fla. — Ube Industries Ltd.'s focus on North America is paying off.
In 2016, the company, which is headquartered in Japan, reinforced its North American staff with an experienced team of more senior executives with a goal to expand its presence there and to become a key player in the market.
The new strategy has not only enabled the company to increase its revenue from existing customers, but it has also attracted new clients and new markets. Today, Ube America Inc.'s nylon is being used by the top five U.S. film converters.
As demand for its products in this market rises — in 2017, Ube's sales in the region increased by more than 30 percent compared to the previous year — the company, which produces nylons for technical applications as well as for manufacturing monofilaments and technical components, has taken steps to ensure it can continue to guarantee a constant supply to its North American customers, with the opening of a third reactor at its production site in Castellón, Spain.
"The reactor has been on line for the past few months, but now all the materials are qualified and everything's up and running," said Alex Peters, sales executive at Ube, speaking to Plastics News at NPE2018. "The new reactor more than doubles our production capacity, boosting this from 32,000 to 72,000 tons per year."
The official opening is in June.
Around 95 percent of the nylon produced at the site in Spain, which includes copolymers and terpolymers, medium to high viscosity, is targeted for export to the North American market, where Ube has six warehouses strategically located in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Texas and Wisconsin.
