BASF Opens Nylon Plant in Freeport

Florham Park, NJ, October 8, 2007--BASF today opened two new manufacturing plants to produce nylon and superabsorbent polymers at its site in Freeport, Texas.

"These new facilities…further strengthen our U.S. manufacturing base," said Dr. Kurt Bock, chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation.

The polyamide production line replaces a facility in Enka, North Carolina. The new line has an annual capacity of 120,000 metric tons per year, and the caprolactam feedstock is supplied by another BASF plant at the Freeport site.

"With this latest step in BASF's consolidation strategy, Freeport is now the manufacturing base for BASF's entire polyamide intermediates and polymers business in North America," said Harald Lauke, president of BASF's Performance Polymers division.

The new superabsorbent polymers manufacturing facility is supplied with a key raw material, acrylic acid, from another BASF plant at the Freeport site, which provides major competitive advantages in terms of logistics and product quality. The new plant has a capacity of 180,000 metric tons per year and replaces existing facilities in Aberdeen, Mississippi and Portsmouth, Virginia.