BATON ROUGE, La. -- Albemarle Corporation, a global leader in specialty chemicals and sustainable clean energy solutions, has been awarded a multi-year order from Neste Oil Oyj, Finland  to produce catalysts made exclusively for Neste for use in their NExBTL renewable diesel process.

This proprietary NExBTL process, the world's first fully commercial renewable diesel production process, delivers an advanced fuel based on renewable raw materials that performs more efficiently and has a lower level of environmental impact than fossil diesel or FAME-type (fatty acid methyl ester) biodiesel. Neste Oil and Albemarle have worked together for several years to develop the catalysts for the NExBTL renewable diesel process. Albemarle's multi-year order with Neste includes scheduled deliveries of the catalysts for 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Neste Oil currently operates one NExBTL plant in Porvoo, Finland, with a second NExBTL diesel plant under construction in Porvoo. Neste Oil is also currently building world-scale NExBTL plants in Singapore and Rotterdam, and has ambitious plans for further growth of NExBTL diesel business.

"Creating products that meet societal needs in a sustainable manner is our primary focus," said Mark C. Rohr, president and chief executive officer of Albemarle. "This latest order further demonstrates our ability to develop state-of-the-art clean energy solutions and bring them from lab to market quickly and effectively. Albemarle will continue to be the leading innovator and commercial scale supplier of catalysis technology in this expanding and important field."

"This order emphasizes the key role that innovative catalysis development has in accelerating the rapidly evolving area of alternative fuels," said John Kasbaum, division vice president of Albemarle's Alternative Fuel Technologies group. "Our collaboration with Neste Oil is an example of the significant efforts being undertaken all over the world to develop renewable fuels. We are pleased to be contributing to this exciting technology and look forward to our continued work with Neste Oil to help meet the world's growing clean energy demands."

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