Cargill Dow and Ashland Sign Ethyl Lactate Agreement: Green Solvents from Renewable Resources.

Business Editors

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2002

Cargill Dow LLC, the world leader in developing performance-based, cost-competitive naturally derived polymers and intermediates, has signed an exclusive five-year agreement with Ashland Specialty Chemical Company. This agreement enables Ashland to supply its customers with electronics-grade ethyl lactate derived from Cargill Dow's proprietary technology.

Ashland's new product offering - made from Cargill Dow's polymer intermediate called lactide - is the highest purity `green' solvent known to the industry. Ethyl lactate is derived from lactide and ethanol, which are both annually renewable resource-based raw materials originating from corn.

"We believe that this agreement means there will now be a large scale and secure supply of a consistently ultra-pure grade ethyl lactate for the microelectronics market," said Laura Gigas, solvents product manager for the Electronic Chemicals Division of Ashland Specialty Chemical Company.

"This product is a highly versatile, renewable-resource based solvent. Marketing `green' products and reducing the impact of the semiconductor industry on the environment is one of our key product stewardship goals and consistent with the other values that Ashland brings to the market," Gigas continued.

Ethyl lactate works in a multitude of microelectronic chemical applications and offers the benefit of extreme purity. This solvent is useful as a photoresist carrier solvent, edge-bead remover, and clean-up solvent for semiconductor manufacture.

Ethyl lactate has low toxicity and excellent biodegradability properties. In addition, because it is derived from annually renewable resources, like corn rather than petroleum, the process to make ethyl lactate uses far fewer fossil resources and has significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than other solvents or other ethyl lactate producers.

Cargill Dow's ability to provide commercial scale quantities of lactide is based on its new lactic acid plant in Blair, Neb. Cargill Dow's new lactic acid plant is the largest in the world with an annual output of almost twice the size of today's combined world capacity. This plant is the first world-scale operation, providing unique technology for the lowest cost bio-based lactic acid, intermediates and polymers.

"Our mission is to enable the use of renewable resource-based products in the world," said Lisa Owen, commercial leader, Cargill Dow. "We are rounding the corner on the potential of what we can do with our pioneering technology. Our dedication to advancing `green' products by using bioprocessing technology as a manufacturing base for new products will advance our steps, as well as our customers, in the path towards sustainability."

Ethyl lactate is the first `green' chemical derived from lactide. This new solvent will pave the way for introducing more fermentation-based chemicals. Cargill Dow's unique lactide process offers the flexibility to produce any lactate ester and offers a unique spectrum of properties that are of great interest to formulators. Additional products from the use of lactide and unique conversion technology could include methyl, butyl, isopropyl and ethylhexyl lactates.

Founded in 1997, Cargill Dow LLC is based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. It is the first company to offer its customers a family of polymers and intermediates derived entirely from annually renewable resources with the cost and performance necessary to compete with petroleum-based materials. The company has achieved this breakthrough by developing unique bioprocessing of natural sugars along with polymer processing technology to create revolutionary "green" polymers and intermediate building blocks. For more company information, please visit the Cargill Dow Web site at http://www.cargilldow.com.

The Electronic Chemicals Division of Ashland Specialty Chemical Company is a leading worldwide supplier of ultrapure chemicals, photoresist strippers and on-site chemical management and parts cleaning services to the microelectronics industry. The division operates QS 9000-certified production facilities at Dallas; Easton, Pa.; Pueblo, Co.; Milan, Italy; and Pyongtaek City, Korea. It also participates in a joint venture, Ashland Union Electronic Chemical Corp. (AUECC), serving Taiwan and the Asian region, which holds ISO 9001:2000 quality certification.

Ashland Specialty Chemical Company, a division of Ashland Inc. (NYSE: ASH), is a leading, worldwide supplier of specialty chemicals serving industries including adhesives, automotive, composites, foundry, merchant marine, paint, paper, plastics, semiconductor, watercraft and water treatment. Visit the Internet web site at http://www.ashspec.com to learn more about these operations.