A dust explosion occurred Tuesday morning September 12, 2006 in the penta plant at the Perstorp Group’s production site in Bruchhausen, Germany. Apart from grave personal injuries, the plant and other installations were seriously damaged.

As a consequence hereof, Force Majeure is hereby declared as regards deliveries of Pentaerythritol, Di-Pentaerythritol, Calcium Formate, Prosid CF 30 and Charmor from the Perstorp Group’s European units.

Inspection and an impact assessment are presently being conducted. On the basis of the results hereof, we will revert to you as soon as possible with further information on our delivery capacity in the short term and when we expect full production to be resumed. We estimate to be able to do so in the beginning of the week commencing September 18. In order to minimize production shortfall we have instructed all other production units to operate at full capacity.

We will do our utmost to keep you duly and continuously informed. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may cause your company. Questions should be directed to your regular sales representative.

Perstorp September 14, 2006
By and on behalf of
Perstorp Holding AB and its subsidiaries

Inge Pettersson
Executive Vice President
Head of Marketing & Sales