CSR Press Release

PARIS, France - At the JEC Composites Show, Owens Corning (OWENQ.OB) will exhibit at its booth and showcase the company's breakthrough high-performance reinforcement platform HiPer-tex at a technical presentation* led by Application Development Engineer Luc Peters in the 'Agora' venue on Wednesday, March 29th at 10h30.

During his presentation, Peters will highlight the development and evolution of HiPer-tex reinforcement platform emphasizing its game-changing technological advantages and performance benefits. As part of his comments, Peters will be providing additional information on WindStrand™, the first HiPer-tex product application launched at last month's European Wind Energy Conference in Athens Greece, and also provide performance data on how the product can transform other market applications. Currently, other key target markets for the new product include aerospace, ballistics and high-pressure vessels, such as compressed natural gas tanks (CNG). For CNG tanks, HiPer-tex reinforcement platform would deliver:

• A 50 percent weight savings vs. steel (Type I design)
  
• A 40 percent cost reduction vs. conventional high performance fibers (for Type IV design)
  
• Excellent fatigue and impact properties
  
• Superior corrosion resistance versus E-glass
  
• Improved vehicle gas mileage of trucks and cars. Using HiPer-tex reinforcement platform, for the average CNG fueled car alone, fuel efficiencies of a mid-sized car could increase by as much as 4 percent and reduce CO2 emissions by up to 2 tons per vehicle over its lifetime.

Demand for vehicles powered by natural gas is increasing as they are not only progressively more perceived as clean burning with very low particulate emissions and environmentally friendly, but they also lower the dependence on petroleum oil. Typical natural gas vehicles are buses and urban delivery trucks. Composite materials provide an enabling technology to reduce the weight of existing CNG tanks and increase fuel efficient, vehicle range and payloads.

Owens Corning HiPer-tex is the result of a revolutionary high performance reinforcement platform which uses proprietary melting, fiberizing and sizing technology specifically formulated to provide higher tensile strength and moduli. The product provides manufacturers with excellent processability compared with conventional fibers. Compared to conventional E-glass, HiPer-tex reinforcement platform delivers the following benefits:

• Up to 35% higher strength
  
• Up to 17% higher stiffness (modulus)
  
• End-use parts which display higher fatigue properties
  
• Significantly better impact resistance
  
• Better ageing and corrosion resistance than ECR (Electrical Corrosion Resistance)
  
• Better resistance at elevated temperatures

"The development of this new material is in response to the composites industry's need for a large volume production high-performance fiber that will enable it to compete favourably with traditional materials by significantly improving the cost-performance ratio of composites," said Owens Corning Composites Business President Chuck Dana. "It also highlights another milestone in the 67 years -and counting - that Owens Corning has continued to transform markets by replacing traditional materials with glass fiber composites in thousands of applications."

HiPer-tex reinforcements, which are targeted to be commercially available in late 2006, will be produced using the Owens Corning next-generation high performance platform, which has a significantly smaller environmental footprint than other technologies currently in use.

The JEC Composites Show (28-30 March, 2006) celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and is known as the global venue for the introduction of new technologies in composites and is held annually at the Expo Porte de Versailles, Paris, France. Owens Corning is exhibiting in Hall 1 Booth Q7/Q19

* To obtain a copy of the presentation please access the following link:
www.owenscorning.com/HiPer-tex

™ HiPer-tex and WindStrand are trademarks of Owens Corning.

About Owens Corning
Owens Corning is a world leader in building materials systems and composite solutions. A Fortune 500 company for more than 50 years, Owens Corning people redefine what is possible each day to deliver high-quality products and services ranging from insulation, roofing, siding and stone, to glass composite materials used in transportation, electronic, telecommunications and other high-performance applications. Since the company's founding in 1938, Owens Corning (OWENQ.OB) has become a market-leading innovator of glass fiber technology with sales of $6.3 billion in 2005 and 20,000 employees in 25 countries. Additional information is available at www.owenscorning.com.

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