Albemarle Announces Launch of New FCC Catalyst Family

AMERSFOORT, The Netherlands, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) and Fabrica Carioca de Catalisadores S.A. (FCC SA), a joint venture between Albemarle and Petrobras, Brazil's largest oil producing and refining company, announced today a major step forward for the petroleum refining industry with the commercial launch of their new ReVolution family of fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) catalysts.

Increasingly stringent regulations on fuel sulfur content and the ever- growing demand for transportation fuels in expanding markets such as China pose significant challenges for refiners worldwide. The depletion of higher quality oil reserves combined with today's high oil prices, make the utilization of lower quality crude sources more and more prevalent, and in some cases, even a necessity for refiners. While being less expensive to purchase, these lower quality crude oils are much more difficult and costly to convert to usable fuels and contain significantly higher levels of impurities such as sulfur and metal contaminants.

The ReVolution family of FCC catalysts, first introduced by FCC SA, will help refiners process these lower quality crude oils efficiently and economically due to the catalysts' outstanding ability to trap vanadium, one of the most common and destructive contaminant metals found in these crude sources. The ReVolution catalyst family utilizes the new Improved Metals Capturing System, or IMCS, a major technological advancement in the trapping of contaminant metals.

"ReVolution will provide refiners with tremendous value due to its ability to significantly reduce the negative impacts resulting from the high levels of vanadium typically found in the low-quality crude oils commonly being processed today," said Harm Scheepstra, Albemarle's FCC global business director.

FCC catalysts are used in virtually all petroleum refineries and are essential for the production of transportation fuels.

Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is a leading global developer, manufacturer and marketer of bromine, bromine derivatives, and other highly engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics; petroleum and petrochemical processing; transportation and industrial products; pharmaceuticals; agricultural products; and construction and packaging materials. The Company operates in three business segments -- Polymer Additives, Catalysts and Fine Chemicals, and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. 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

CONTACT: Rene Milligan, Corporate Communications of Albemarle Corporation, +1-225-388-7106 or rene_milligan@albemarle.com