Solvay & CPC Barium Strontium Names Ray L. Johnson President and Chief Executive Officer.

HOUSTON -- Ray L. Johnson has been named to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer for Solvay & CPC Barium Strontium GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered in Hanover, Germany. Solvay & CPC Barium Strontium is a recently created worldwide joint venture between certain member companies of the Solvay Group and Chemical Products Corporation, with operations in Mexico, Germany, India and Korea.

Mr. Johnson joined Solvay Minerals, Inc. in 1992 as Vice President for finance and human resources, and became Vice President for sales and marketing in 1994. In 1996, he assumed the additional responsibility for the North American barium and strontium business. In 2003, he was named Vice President - Logistics and Human Resources for the newly formed Solvay Chemicals, Inc.

Mr. Johnson holds a BS in Human Resource Management from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Solvay Group is an international chemical and pharmaceutical group with headquarters in Brussels whose companies employ more than 30,000 people in 50 countries. Including Fournier Pharma, its 2004 sales amounted to EUR 8.5 billion generated by its three activity sectors: Chemicals, Plastics and Pharmaceuticals. Solvay is listed on the Euronext 100 of top European companies. Details are available at www.solvay.com.

Chemical Products Corporation (CPC) is a privately held company founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Cartersville, GA. The company produces barium and strontium salts and sulfur products from its basic position on raw material barite and celestite. In addition to the barium and strontium business, CPC produces and markets colloidal silicas under Precision Colloids LLC, specialty pulp and paper chemicals, and agricultural herbicides under the subsidiary Chemical Products Technologies (CPT). Details are available at www.chemicalproductscorp.com.