Albemarle, hte Sign Collaboration Agreement

BATON ROUGE, La.; HEIDELBERG, Germany, Oct 17, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), a leader in refinery catalysts, and hte Aktiengesellschaft, the high-throughput experimentation company, announced today that they have entered into a multi-year collaboration agreement.

Under the terms of this agreement hte will provide Albemarle with high-throughput experimentation solutions to enhance innovation in the field of refinery catalysis, including the supply of hardware and software technologies and research services.

This collaboration agreement extends the work that Albemarle and hte have undertaken together in the past two years to apply hte's proprietary technologies and methods to technically challenging research topics in refinery catalysis.

"High-throughput experimentation allows us to rapidly examine large-parameter spaces, improving the speed of innovation and allowing us to maintain our leading technology position in refinery catalysis," noted Kees van der Wiele, R&D and technology director of Albemarle Catalysts. "The cooperation with hte will fundamentally change the way we perform catalyst synthesis, assess new leads, and optimize novel catalysts. We are excited to cooperate with hte in creating this completely new innovation process."

"Innovation in catalysis for refinery processes promises considerable environmental and economic benefits," said Dirk Demuth, CEO of hte, "We are delighted to be working with Albemarle to maintain their competitive advantage in innovation in this field through the application of our high-throughput experimentation technologies."

hte provides integrated technology solutions and services to chemical industry clients that enable significant enhancement in innovation productivity by application of high-throughput experimentation. hte brings the benefit of its extensive expertise in deploying these methods to its clients either through research collaborations based at hte's facilities in Heidelberg, Germany, or through implementation of tailored, integrated hardware and software solutions at the client's research site. hte is an independent, privately-held company, founded in 1999 with a staff of over 60 employees. Learn more about hte at http://www.hte-company.de .

Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is a leading global developer, manufacturer and marketer of highly engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics; petroleum and petrochemical processing; transportation and industrial products; pharmaceuticals; agricultural products; construction and packaging materials. The Company operates in three business segments, Polymer Additives, Catalysts and Fine Chemicals, and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. The company's catalyst segment-with subsidiaries and sites in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in the USA-is a leader in catalysts for refining processes such as fluidized catalytic cracking and hydroprocessing. Learn more about Albemarle at http://www.albemarle.com .

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Albemarle Corporation's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

SOURCE Albemarle Corporation

Rene Milligan, Corporate Communications of Albemarle Corporation, +1-225-388-7106, or rene_milligan@albemarle.com ; or Dr. Jason D. King of hte Aktiengesellschaft, +49-0-6221-7497-221, or jason.king@hte-company.de