DPE clarifies CR position. Updated

Nuremberg, Germany - DuPont Performance Elastomers has invested $50 million in its CR factory in Pontchartrain, Louisiana, but declined to comment on the suggestion that the cash is sufficient to buy significant new capacity for the material.

Simultaneously, DPE confirmed that its CR plant at Louisville, Kentucky will close in March 2007. The company announced in 2002 that the unit would close in March 2006, but following the storm damage caused by the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005, kept the unit open for an extra year to build up stocks.

DPE's European marketing manager for chlorinated elastomers, Jean-Marc Imbert, said the $50 million investment at its Pontchartrain facility will ensure that DPE can continue to make and supply chloroprene latices and other grades which were supplied from Louisville. Pontchartrain previously was restricted to solid grades of the elastomer.

Imbert said the new materials would begin coming out of the Pontchartrain plant from November 2007, and that the company is making provisions to ensure a smooth transition to the new situation and to keep customers supplied with material in the eight-month hiatus.

Imbert declined to comment on capacities of the factories, and declined to make any comment on whether the investment at Pontchartrain will lead to a net gain, or loss in DPE's overall capacity for CR.