LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. -- For the fourth consecutive year, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., has achieved the best safety record in the category of total recordables among large-scale chemical manufacturers in the United States for 2001, according to Responsible Care(r) performance measure data recently released by the American Chemistry Council.

In the category most often cited when evaluating the safety of the chemical industry -- total recordable incidence rate -- Air Products improved 13 percent with an incidence rate of 0.83 per 200,000 employee-hours worked versus 0.94 last year. The industry average for large companies (20 million or more employee-hours worked per year) was 1.85.

According to Dr. Chat Chatterjee, Air Products’ vice president of Environment, Health & Safety and Corporate Engineering, “Dedication to safety is a fundamental value within the Air Products culture -- not only in the United States, but around the world. Our policies and practices are applied globally, and the knowledge we gain on such a scale puts us in an even better position to identify, evaluate and correct unsafe conditions before accidents occur. Our focus on safety can never waiver as we continue to strive toward our ultimate goal of zero injuries.”

For more information about Air Products’ overall performance in environmental, health and safety for 2001, visit www.airproducts.com/where-we-stand2001/.