Songwon announces the start up of its new isobutylene facility

Ulsan, Korea – June 18, 2009 – Songwon Industrial Co. Ltd. is pleased to announce that its new $20 Million isobutylene (IBL) production facility, located at the Maeam site in South Korea, has been successfully commissioned and is now fully in production.

Jongho Park, Chairman and CEO of Songwon Industrial Co., Ltd. commented; “This is a landmark event and demonstrates our determination to deliver on the commitments we have made to our customers. It represents a number of milestones for the chemical world; not only is it the first large scale IBL production facility globally – with a total capacity of 30,000 tons; it is also based on proprietary TBA (t-butanol) cracking technology. This will ensure that our quality is consistently of the highest level and that commercially we will be a strong competitive force in the market place. I am particularly proud of the environmental benefits we have achieved in this new IBL process”.

Songwon has invested heavily in developing ground-breaking proprietary technology to enhance its broad product range. Catalytic cracking of TBA has a number of key advantages in comparison with the other technologies to produce IBL, which are mostly derived from oil. Songwon is no longer affected by the volatile market pricing of IBL, which is an important component in its wide range of antioxidants, and will use less energy to achieve its production volume.