Petro-Chem Announces Combination with Heurtey

NEW YORK--(Business Wire)--Petro-Chem Development Co., Inc. (Petro-Chem) announced today that
it has agreed to be acquired by Heurtey Petrochem S. A. (Heurtey).
This combination of New York-based Petro-Chem and Paris-based Heurtey
will create the world's largest provider of direct fired heaters to
the global refinery and petrochemical industries. Specific terms of
the transaction were not disclosed. Heurtey is a publicly traded
company that is listed on the Alternext d' Euronext Paris Exchange, an
affiliate of the NYSE, under the stock symbol ALHPC.

Similar to Petro-Chem, Heurtey is an engineering company that
specializes in providing direct fired heaters to refineries and
petrochemical facilities. Heurtey has a particularly strong presence
in Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This nicely
compliments Petro-Chem's strong presence in the North American, South
American and Asian markets. Upon completion of this transaction,
Heurtey Petro-Chem will have 12 offices worldwide (3 in the United
States, 4 in Europe, 1 in Africa and 2 in India, 1 in Singapore and 1
in Korea) and approximately 500 employees.

Michel Pingeot, Chairman and CEO of Heurtey commented, "We are
pleased to combine the capabilities and resources of these two
companies, which will create the undisputed leader in our industry.
Heurtey and Petro-Chem will be able to provide our customers with a
breadth of technical solutions which are unparalleled. In addition,
together, we will cover all the key geographic regions around the
globe in great depth. We have known, and worked successfully together
with, the principals and management team of Petro-Chem for many years,
including, most notably, the formation of our successful Middle
Eastern joint venture in 2005. This is another step designed to
produce enhanced solutions for our customers and to realize the common
management objective of both companies which is to build the world's
leading supplier of direct fired heater solutions."

Stephen T. Limpe, President and CEO of Petro-Chem stated, "We are
extremely excited about this combination - it is unprecedented in our
industry. Our two companies share a 45 year history of successful
collaboration in connection with various projects. Both companies will
benefit from global project execution capabilities (North America,
South America, Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia)
as well as technical leadership in refining, aromatics, reforming and
cracking technologies. Our clients will benefit from our enhanced
ability to execute large, complex projects."

"This combination establishes the opportunity for a cross selling
of our technologies and skill sets in each other's geographic markets
and will benefit and deepen our customer relationships. Petro-Chem
will contribute expertise in heavy oil processing, aromatics, and
revamping services to Heurtey's core markets in Europe and the Middle
East. Conversely, Petro-Chem will now be in a position to offer its
clients advanced reforming and cracking furnaces utilized in hydrogen
and ethylene production. There is virtually no overlap between the two
companies," stated Mr. Limpe.

"We have tremendous respect for Heurtey's capabilities. At the end
of the day, we wanted to build the optimal platform to provide "best
of class" solutions in thermal technology to process the increasingly
large and complex projects around the world. Simply put, this
combination realizes that objective," Mr. Limpe added.

Michel Pingeot concluded, "Upon completion of this transaction,
the current Petro-Chem shareholders will become significant
shareholders of Heurtey. Petro-Chem will remain an independently
operated business within the Heurtey family of companies and the
management structure and team of both companies will remain intact.
The positive momentum we have built in our respective operations over
the last 5 years will be enhanced by the robust technical services we
will provide to our combined customer relationships and the improved
financial resources available to a larger, publicly traded and
established entity."

The closing is subject to the approval of the shareholders of
Heurtey. It is anticipated that this transaction will become effective
following a meeting of such shareholders at the beginning of the
second quarter of 2008. Following the closing, Michel Pingeot will
serve as the Chairman of Petro-Chem. Stephen T. Limpe will continue to
lead Petro-Chem as its President and Chief Executive Officer and
Anthony T. Limpe will remain on the Board of Petro-Chem as its Vice
Chairman and a Director.

About Petro Chem:

Petro-Chem Development Co., Inc. is one of the world's leading
providers of process furnaces and direct fired heaters to oil
refineries and petrochemical plants throughout the world. Founded in
1939, Petro-Chem and its affiliates and licensees have designed and
produced over 10,000 process furnaces for over 500 clients around the
world. Petro-Chem is headquartered in New York, NY USA with offices in
Tulsa, OK; Houston, TX; Seoul, Korea, Pune, India and joint venture
companies in the Middle East with Heurtey Petrochem SA and in China
with an affiliate of Sinopec. Visit www.petro-chemusa.com.

About Heurtey:

Founded in 1953, Heurtey designs, studies, manufactures, and
installs complex sets of process furnaces for the transformation of
hydrocarbons into derived products with an expertise which goes from
the feasibility studies through the execution of turn-key projects.
Since its creation, Heurtey has designed or produced more than 2,500
cracking, refining and reforming furnaces establishing it as a global
leader in its industry. Headquartered in Paris, Heurtey maintains
subsidiary company offices in London, Bucharest, Hamburg,
Johannesburg, Mumbai, and Singapore. Heurtey's client base includes
the largest global oil companies. In 2006 Heurtey Petrochem realized a
sales turnover of 81.3 mm Euros. Heurtey Petrochem securities are
traded on the Alternext d' Euronext Paris Exchange (ALHPC). Visit
www.heurtey.com.

Petro-Chem Development Co., Inc.
Stephen T. Limpe, 212-455-6500
PR@petro-chemusa.com
or
Heurtey
Michel Pingeot, 011 33 (0)1 41 93 80 23
President
heurtey@heurtey.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008