Lurgi on the road to success, now jointly with Zimmer

5 February 2007: At the turn of the year, the operational business of the Frankfurt-based plant engineering contractor Zimmer was integrated into Lurgi AG, likewise domiciled in Frankfurt. The new business is managed by Dr. Ulrich Schwalm, who is absolutely familiar with this industry. With the merger of the two brand names of worldwide renown, Lurgi and Zimmer, customers can now acquire complete purposedesigned industrial plants from one single source thanks to the mutual complementation of technologies. Lurgi has thus found a welcome companion on its road to success. In 2006, Lurgi succeeded in taking in a record volume of new orders worth around EUR 1.3 billion and achieved earnings far above the budgeted level.

Predictions for 2007 are highly positive: in January already contracts for EUR 100 million have been secured and in the bioethanol sector alone, several major projects in the US are about to materialize. The breakthrough of the Lurgi Methanol-to-Propylene technology with, hitherto, two projects in China for the cost-effective production of plastics from natural gas and coal has now been corroborated through contracts having come in from western countries. At the beginning of the year already, Zimmer recorded contracts from Eastern Europe in its order books. Further new orders from the US and also Eastern Europe are about to be signed. The chairman of Lurgi’s Executive Board, Klaus Moll, commanding long-term experience in the chemical fibers business, is convinced of the success of the new constellation: “The incorporation of Zimmer technologies represents an excellent supplement to Lurgi’s portfolio. For the first quarter we expect to receive new orders for more than EUR 70 million for Zimmer’s business alone, along with full capacity utilization for 2007. The worldwide sales and engineering network which is now accessible to us jointly, in combination with our pooled purchasing activities, are originating new opportunities for growth. Thanks to greater flexibility in capacity control, we are now in a better position to deal with work load peaks.”

A further positive result of the merger is that we can now offer complete petrochemical production chains from the raw material through to end products like PET and synthetic fibers.