Elsag Bailey Cites Key Orders, Growing Latin America Business.

SAO PAULO, Brazil--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 30, 1998--Officials at Elsag Bailey Process Automation N. V. (NYSE:EBY) said today that the company is experiencing a significant upswing in business from its operations in Latin America. While announcing several new orders, the company cited a broad cross section of recent successes in the Latin American electric power, refining, and petrochemicals sectors. Elsag Bailey bookings in the region in the last 12 months were over $140 million, which is nearly double the previous 12 months.

Highlighting the recent activity are contracts totaling about $20 million from two Brazilian electric power companies, supporting the nation's goal to increase power capacity by more than 25% over the next ten years. Electropaulo has contracted for Elsag Bailey systems as part of a major renovation at its Sao Paulo generating facility, where Elsag Bailey will provide new distributed controls and new burner systems designed to reduce environmental emissions. Another major Brazilian utility, CESP, has purchased energy management and SCADA systems from Elsag Bailey as part of improvements to its transmission and distribution grid. Both companies were recently purchased by private investors under an aggressive Brazilian-government privatization program.

The Brazilian orders complement a major contract from Mexico's national power company, CFE, which was announced in January of this year. The nearly $38 million project covers installation of Elsag Bailey energy management systems to serve Mexico's National Energy Control Center and fifteen distributed sites. Also in Mexico, Elsag Bailey last month received a $3.4 million order from a private utility company, Luz y Fuera, to install a center to control its electric distribution system for the whole of Mexico City. Additional energy management awards, totaling about $8 million, were received in recent weeks from two Venezuelan utilities, CVG-EDELCA and OPSIS.

Mr. M. N. Zaharna, Elsag Bailey Chief Operating Officer and Group Executive Vice President, Americas, commented on the recent orders, stating, "We are extremely pleased at the depth of our success in Latin America's electric power industry. Elsag Bailey's expansion to the transmission and distribution sectors is particularly exciting, complementing our long-standing strength in steam generation, turbine, and balance-of-plant controls for electric power producers."

Other Elsag Bailey successes have come from Latin America's oil and gas, refining and petrochemical sectors. In Brazil, new automation systems have been provided to eight Petrobras sites during the past two years, and to other key customers including SAMARCO, Copesul, and Copene. Elsag Bailey technologies supplied include a broad mix of distributed control systems, process instrumentation, and analytical measurement products. In Venezuela PDVSA/Conoco have placed a systems order totaling more than $5 million for upstream facilities of the Petrozuata very heavy oil project. Argentinean oil producer YPF recently purchased more than 500 Elsag Bailey magnetic flow meters, marking what is believed to be the company's largest single unit order for the product line. In Chile, the company believes recent control and instrumentation orders have made Elsag Bailey the largest supplier of such technologies to the nation.

Since 1992, Elsag Bailey has significantly expanded its presence in Latin America. Resources today include nearly 350 employees at subsidiary operations in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, and a network of representatives spanning 13 countries. Mr. David Stamford, Area Vice President for Latin America, summarized the company's strategy for the area, stating "Our strong local presence and broad product lines have been instrumental in enabling us to support the growing automation needs of Latin America's developing economies. We will invest in new resources as necessary to leverage what we believe are continued, strong opportunities in the area."

One of the world's leading process automation companies, Elsag Bailey Process Automation N.V., incorporated in the Netherlands, has grown its revenues to more than $1.5 billion by aggressively expanding its global markets and technologies. The company employs some 11,000 employees in over 30 countries. Elsag Bailey's computer and electrical products -- control systems, instrumentation products, and analytical devices -- keep its customers on the cutting edge of productivity. Elsag Bailey's global customers are among the leading names in the process industries including electric utilities, oil and gas, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, water and wastewater, metals and ceramics, and other industrial companies.

For copies of additional press releases or quarterly reports, call Elsag Bailey's Fax-on-Demand service at 1-888-329-2311, or visit the Company's web site at www.ebpa.com. Requests for information can also be made via e-mail at [e-mail].

    CONTACT:  Elsag Bailey
               Christopher M. Farage, Ph.D., 440/585-8675