The LANXESS Inorganic Pigments business unit is a leading global manufacturer and established market leader in the field of inorganic pigments. For more than eighty years, iron oxide pigments from LANXESS have added color to our daily lives. Currently, the business unit runs the world’s largest production facility for iron oxide pigments in Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany, with an annual capacity of 300,000 metric tons. Apart from the main site in Germany, the business unit also operates production facilities in Australia, Brazil, China, the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States. All these facilities comply with the very latest international standards on occupational safety and environmental protection.

The iron oxide and chrome oxide pigments from the IPG business unit are well known throughout the world under the names of Bayferrox, Bayoxide, Bayscape, Colortherm and Chrome Oxide Green. These quality and innovative products are noted for their outstanding lightfastness, their weather and chemical resistance, and their environmentally friendly application properties.

For many decades, LANXESS pigments have been firmly established in a wide variety of applications and used to color a variety of products, including concrete, automotive topcoats, rubber, paper, artificial turf and colored mulch for garden landscaping. The business unit’s most important market is the construction industry, accounting for approximately 50 % of sales. LANXESS’s pigments have also been used in surface coatings, plastics, paper and, as special pigments, in toners and other applications.


Inorganic pigments in Asia-Pacific

In the emerging Asia-Pacific market, the business unit enjoys a high growth rate with an average annual increase of more than 15% and an expected sales increase of nearly 30 % until 2010. To meet the growing demand from local customers in the region, last year the business unit expanded its production capacity in the LANXESS Shanghai Pigments plant in Taopu, and opened a production facility for yellow raw pigment in Jinshan, Shanghai with an annual production capacity of around 20,000 tons.

For the year 2007, the LANXESS Inorganic Pigments business unit was commemorated as a “TOP 10 Pigments Supplier” for the second consecutive year by HC group (www.hc360.com), a leading B2B electronic commerce services provider in China.

The Inorganic Pigments business unit belongs to the Performance Chemicals segment of LANXESS, which achieved total sales of USD 1.911 billion in 2007. Production sites are in Starpointe (Pittsburgh), USA, Porto Feliz, Brasil, Branston, UK, Villasar de Mar, Spain, Shanghai and Jinshan, China, Homebush Bay (Sydney), Australia, and Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany.

Shanghai, April 17, 2008