Netherlands subsidiary company Omya Beheer BV is building a new plant for natural calcium carbonate (GCC) in Moerdijk, near Rotterdam. The plant is expected to begin production in mid-2005, with an initial capacity of 500,000 tons per year. The new Moerdijk plant will process a white, high-purity marble mined by Omya in Turkey. Major expansion to loading and unloading terminals in Turkey and Moerdijk will assure a smooth-running supply chain to handle as much as 1 million tons of unprocessed marble a year. The Benelux countries and adjoining territories in western Germany and northern France are among the most highly industrialized regions in the world. Omya has been present for over a century and currently operates over 20 GCC, PCC, talcum and dolomite production plants in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. From a logistics viewpoint, Moerdijk is an ideal location in Omya's global supply network. With its own sea and inland port facilities, as well as a direct rail link and an express highway running close by, Moerdijk has grown into one of Omya's key regional sites. The new GCC plant will join existing facilities there, including a tank farm for calcium carbonate slurry, a PCC plant with annual capacity of over ½ million tons of slurry, and a factory that produces high-quality dispersants.

For more information, visit http://www.omya.com .