In a joint press conference with city officials, Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc. has announced that it will build a new production facility in Esslingen, Germany, to produce specialty epoxy resins, vital materials used in the production of windmill blades for the wind energy market.

The new 10,000-square-meter facility will include production and warehousing as well as an applications laboratory and offices. The facility will be a “blending-only” operation and will not include chemical reactors. It will replace a smaller Hexion facility in nearby Stuttgart that is not suitable to continue to house the growing business operation. The 50 employees at the Stuttgart site will transfer to the Esslingen operation once it is commissioned late in the third quarter of 2009. Additional jobs may be created at the Esslingen location in the future as the business anticipates continued growth.

“We reviewed a number of sites but selected the Esslingen location as the one that best meets our business needs,” said Johannes Meunier, Hexion’s business manager for Composites & Wind Energy. “This new, state-of-the-art facility will accommodate our rapidly growing operations to help us better serve our wind energy customers.”

In the past few months, the city administration of Esslingen joined forces with Harbert Management Corp. and developed a comprehensive concept for the area where Hexion will locate, a former Panasonic site where production of cathode ray tube ceased in 2006.

For more information, visit www.hexion.com.