Gas Technology Products Announces New Venture With Technip KTI S.p.A.

December 19, 2002 — Gas Technology Products (GTP), Schaumburg, Ill, announces the appointment of Technip KTI S.p.A., Rome, Italy as its exclusive representative for the GTP LO-CAT® hydrogen sulfide removal process in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. KTI will also perform the detailed engineering and construction on all units sold in these regions.

According to Gary Nagl, vice president/general manager of GTP, "The combination of GTP’s LO-CAT® expertise and KTI’s sulfur recovery expertise will result in a dynamic approach to the sulfur recovery market, especially in the areas of tail gas cleanup and debottlenecking of existing Claus units. The real beneficiaries of this venture will be our current and future customers in the designated areas who will now have regional contact through the many KTI offices."

Leonardo Re, Managing Director of Technip KTI confirms, "We are very interested in expanding our technologies in the areas of gas cleaning through the integration of GTP’S LO-CAT® hydrogen sulfide removal system with KTI’s modified Claus technology. Since the early 1990’s we have been using the LO-CAT® process technology in two projects in Italy with great success. We appreciate the continuing commitment of GTP to keep LO-CAT® the state of the art in terms of operating reliability and cost reduction."

Technip KTI S.p.A., a wholly owned company of Technip Italy, part of Technip-Coflexip Group, is an industrial EPC firm (engineering, procurement and contracting) and one of the worldwide leaders in the contracting industry. Technip KTI has over 30 years experience in process plants for the oil, gas and petrochemical industry through proprietary technologies and exclusive agreements with qualified partners. Additional information is available at http://www.technip-coflexip.com.

Gas Technology Products, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merichem Chemicals & Refinery Services LLC, has more that 25 years of H2S removal experience and offers a complete portfolio of H2S removal processes, systems and products to fit a wide range of applications. Additional information is available at http://www.gtp-merichem.com.

Merichem Chemicals & Refinery Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merichem Company, provides a diversified portfolio of products and services including naphthenic acids, copper napthenate, sodium hydrosulfide, and process technology to the chemical, refining, and pulp and paper industries worldwide.