Profile: Albemarle Corporation (ALB)

Albemarle Corporation (Albemarle), incorporated in 1993, is a global developer, manufacturer and marketer of engineered specialty chemicals. The Company sells a diversified mix of products to a range of customers, including manufacturers of consumer electronics, building and construction materials, automotive parts, packaging, pharmachemicals and agrichemicals and petroleum refiners. Albemarle and its joint ventures operate 45 facilities, including production, research and development facilities, and administrative and sales offices in North and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The Company serves more than 3,000 customers in over 100 countries. Albemarle has three business segments: Polymer Additives, Catalysts and Fine Chemicals. In July 2008, the Company completed the acquisition of 100% ownership of two polymer additive joint ventures in China, Ningbo Jinhai Albemarle Chemical & Industry Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Jinhai Albemarle Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd. In August 2008, the Company announced that it had acquired full-service power plant mercury-control provider Sorbent Technologies Corporation.

Polymer Additives

The Company’s Polymer Additives segment consists of two product categories: flame retardants, and stabilizers and curatives. Its flame retardants help materials in a variety of finished products. Some of the products that benefit from Albemarle’s flame retardants include plastic enclosures for consumer electronics, printed circuit boards, wire and cable, electrical connectors, foam insulation, foam seating in furniture, and automobiles and textiles. Its brominated flame retardants include products, such as Saytex and Pyro-Chek; the Company’s mineral-based flame retardants include products, such as Martinal and Magnifin, and its phosphorus-based flame retardants include products, such as Antiblaze and Ncendx.

Albemarle produces plastic and other additives, such as curatives, antioxidants and stabilizers. The Company’s plastic additives products include curatives for polyurethane and epoxy system polymerization. Its Ethacure curatives are used in cast elastomers, coatings, reaction injection molding (RIM) and specialty adhesives that are incorporated into products, such as wheels, tires and rollers. Albemarle’s line of Ethanox antioxidants is used by manufacturers of polyolefins to maintain physical properties during the manufacturing process, including the color of the final product. These antioxidants are found in applications, such as slit film, wire and cable, food packaging and pipes. The Company produces antioxidants used in fuels and lubricants. Its line of Ethanox fuel and lubricant antioxidants are used by refiners and fuel marketers and by oil marketers and lubricant manufacturers. Albemarle’s joint venture, Stannica LLC, produces organic and inorganic tin intermediates used as a raw material in the production of tin-based polyvinyl chloride (PVC) heat stabilizers.

The Company competes with Chemtura Corporation, Israel Chemicals Ltd., Jiangsu Yoke Technology Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Wansheng Chemical Co., Ltd. Almatis, Kyowa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Nabaltec GmbH, Ciba Holding AG, Chemtura Corporation and Songwon Industrial Co., Ltd.

Catalysts

Albemarle’s Catalysts segment includes refinery catalysts and polyolefin catalysts product categories. The Company’s two refinery catalysts product lines are hydroprocessing (HPC) catalysts and fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) catalysts and additives. HPC catalysts are primarily used to reduce the quantity of sulfur and other impurities in petroleum products, as well as to convert heavy feedstock into lighter products. Its FCC additives are used to remove sulfur in gasoline and to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in FCC units. Albemarle offers more than 90 different HPC catalysts products and more than 70 different FCC catalysts and additives products to its customers. The Company manufactures aluminum and magnesium-alkyls, which are used as co-catalysts in the production of polyolefins, elastomers, alpha olefins, such as hexene, octene and decene, and organotin heat stabilizers and in the preparation of organic intermediates. Albemarle also produces metallocene/single-site catalysts, which aid in the development and production of polymers.

The Company competes with Criterion Catalysts and Technologies, W.R. Grace & Co./Advanced Refining Technologies., BASF Corporation, Akzo Nobel N.V., Chemtura Corporation and Tosoh Corporation.

Fine Chemicals

The Company’s Fine Chemicals segment consists of two product categories: performance chemicals, and fine chemistry services and intermediates. Performance chemicals include products, such as elemental bromine, alkyl bromides, inorganic bromides and a number of bromine fine chemicals. Albemarle’s products are used in chemical synthesis, oil and gas well drilling and completion fluids, paper manufacturing, water purification, glass manufacturing, photography and various other industrial applications. In addition to supplying the specific fine chemical products and performance chemicals for the pharmaceutical and agricultural uses, its fine chemistry services business offers custom manufacturing, research and chemical scale-up services for companies. Albemarle’s agrichemicals are sold to agrichemical manufacturers and distributors that produce and distribute finished agricultural herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and soil fumigants. The Company’s products include orthoalkylated anilines used in the acetanilide family of pre-emergent herbicides used with corn, soybeans and other crops and methyl bromide, which is used as a soil fumigant. It also manufactures and supplies a variety of chemical intermediates for the agricultural industry.

The Company competes with Chemtura Corporation, Israel Chemicals, BASF Corporation, Clariant Ltd. and Cilag AG.