1. Company Background

Brunner Mond is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of soda ash and associated alkaline products. The company has manufacturing plants in Northwich, Cheshire, where it has its headquarters; in Delfzijl, The Netherlands and at Lake Magadi in Kenya. The Company also operates a transportation terminal at Durban, South Africa. The Company is wholly owned by Tata Chemicals Limited, part of the Tata Group of India.

Brunner Mond’s principal product is soda ash, of which it is one of Europe’s largest producers, and the UK’s sole manufacturer. The combined Brunner Mond/Tata Chemicals Group is the third largest producer of soda ash in the world.

Brunner Mond is also one of the world’s leading producers of refined sodium bicarbonate and Europe’s second largest producer of calcium chloride liquor.

Salt is produced in Kenya, largely for the domestic market.

Soda ash is a vital constituent in a wide range of manufacturing processes including those for glass, detergents and industrial chemicals. Sodium bicarbonate is also used in the manufacture of a diverse range of products including pharmaceuticals, bakery products and personal care products such as toothpaste and deodorants. The Group’s major markets are in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia.

The Company’s mission is to be the world’s soda ash supplier of choice. Originally formed in 1873, since its re-creation as Brunner Mond in 1991 the company has supported an extensive programme of investment in its products, plant, people and customer service facilities.

2 . The Products

Brunner Mond’s products are essential in the manufacture of a wide range of staple and specialist goods, with more than 1500 customers worldwide as diverse as glass makers, bath additive producers, sugar extractors and suppliers of haemodialysis treatments. All our products are supplied from all our operations under the internationally recognised quality standard ISO 9001:2000.

Soda Ash
Sodium Carbonate – soda ash – is the company’s primary product. 1.6m tonnes are produced by the Group each year - around 900,000 tonnes from Cheshire, 330,000 tonnes from the Netherlands and 350,000 tonnes from Kenya. A major investment, which is now at an advanced stage of commissioning, will increase the Kenyan output to 715,000 tonnes annually.

The most significant use of soda ash is in the glass and detergent industries with other customers including those in chemicals manufacture, water purification, polymer production, tanning, aerospace alloys, effluent neutralisation, metal refining, sugar extraction and cement manufacture.

Soda ash is produced synthetically at Brunner Mond’s plants in Cheshire and in Delfzijl by the Ammonia-Soda process which utilises the locally-available raw materials of limestone, coke and brine. At the company’s Kenyan plant, trona (natural soda ash) is dredged from Lake Magadi.

Sodium Bicarbonate

Crude sodium bicarbonate is an intermediate product in the soda ash manufacturing process. At Brunner Mond’s Cheshire plants this is converted into refined sodium bicarbonate and processed into a range of grades to suit different applications and individual customer needs.

More than 70,000 tonnes of refined sodium bicarbonate is produced each year and supplied to 60 countries for a broad spectrum of uses including the manufacture of dialysis products, cakes and biscuits, animal feedstuffs, healthcare products, fire extinguishers, cleaning agents and environmental neutralisation products. A new sodium bicarbonate plant is currently being commissioned at the Delfzijl site in the Netherlands and will manufacture a further 50,000tes p.a.

Calcium Chloride Liquor
Calcium chloride liquor is produced in the ammonia-soda production process. Its most significant uses are in the formulation of oil well drilling and completion fluids in the oil exploration industry and in the production of alginates, with other customers including those in the refrigerants, food, pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries. Calcium chloride is manufactured at the Company’s plants in Northwich and at Delfzijl – in the latter case through Kemax B.V., a joint venture company owned by TETRA Netherlands B.V. and Brunner Mond B.V. where the manufacturing assets are managed by Brunner Mond as part of its 330,000 tes soda ash plant and the product is marketed and sold exclusively by TETRA across north-west Europe.

Company Structure

The Group employs around 1000 people including 450 in the UK, 100 in the Netherlands and 450 in Africa.

Brunner Mond’s headquarters are in Northwich, Cheshire, where the Northwich manufacturing site is made up of the two plants – Northwich East and Northwich West – on either side of the town at Lostock and Winnington.

The Dutch business, Brunner Mond B.V. is based in Delfzijl in the north-east Netherlands having been acquired from Akzo Nobel in 1998 to enhance Brunner Mond’s pan-European capability.

The Company’s Kenyan subsidiary, The Magadi Soda Company, is based at Lake Magadi, a major alkaline evaporate deposit in Africa’s Great Rift Valley about 120km south west of Nairobi. The company practises an exemplary and nationally recognised corporate social responsibility programme for the local community that focuses on provision of such services as healthcare, water, schools, employment and micro-enterprise development.

In February 2006 Tata Chemicals Limited acquired 100% ownership of the Brunner Mond Group through its wholly owned subsidiary Homefield Pvt UK Limited. Tata Chemicals Limited is part of the Tata Group, one of India’s largest business conglomerates. Further information on Tata Chemicals Limited and on the Tata Group is attached as an appendix to this document.

The following are part of the Brunner Mond group of companies, all of which are Private Limited Companies registered in England:

Brunner Mond Group Limited	Registered number 3524903
Brunner Mond (UK) Limited	Registered number 2607081
Brunner Mond Resource Generation Company Limited	Registered number 2608392
Northwich Resource Management Limited	Registered number 2608515
Transcontinental Holdings Limited	Registered number 2608391
Brunner Mond Limited	Registered number 2608543
The Magadi Soda Company Limited	Registered number 202712

Continuing Investment Programme

This is a long-established business with the original Brunner Mond operations in the UK having started in the 1870s; the Kenyan business in the early part of the twentieth century; and the Dutch plant in the 1950s. Brunner Mond was established in its current configuration in the 1990s following the acquisition of ICI’s soda ash business in the UK and Kenya in 1991 and the Akzo Nobel business in the Netherlands in 1998. Since then the Group has implemented an on-going programme of investment with more than £300 million worth of developments and improvements including:

UK

A £130 million Combined Heat and Power plant serving the two Northwich sites and developed in partnership with Powergen CHP Ltd (now E.ON CHP Ltd);
A £6 million Dense Ash Production plant at the Northwich East plant;
A £7 million Refined Sodium Bicarbonate plant at Northwich West;
A £7 million investment in computer control equipment to improve plant efficiency;
A £9 million rail transport and off-loading facility for bringing limestone from Derbyshire to the company’s Northwich plants.

Netherlands

A £2m preheater project to reduce energy usage and improve plant reliability and output.
A £1m investment in plant computer control equipment to improve plant efficiency.
A £2m debottle-necking investment to increase plant capacity.
£10m for the current investment in a sodium bicarbonate plant of 50K TPA capacity.

Kenya

£7m for the establishment of Magadi Rail and associated works to enable the Company to modernise and control the movement of its products to Mombasa.
£9m for the establishment of an overhead power cable line to the Kenyan National Grid and upgrades to various plant and equipment.
£58m for the current investment in a new 365,000 tonnes/yr plant to produce a world class quality of soda ash.
£16m for the acquisition of additional locomotives and rolling stock to meet the increased output

JANUARY 2007

For further information please access the Brunner Mond website (www.brunnermond.com) or the Magadi Soda website (www.magadisoda.co.ke) or contact one of the following at Staniforth Communications, tel +44 (0) 161 274 0100: Linda Isted (+44 (0) 161 274 0115), Alison Hardy (+44 (0) 161 274 0153)

TATA CHEMICALS LIMITED

With a turnover of over US$ 650 Million, Tata Chemicals Limited is India’s leading manufacturer and marketer of inorganic chemicals and fertilisers. Established in 1939, Tata Chemicals is among the world’s largest producers of synthetic soda ash, with the largest domestic market share, produced at the company’s integrated complex at Mithapur on the Gujarat coast in western India.

Tata Chemicals is also one of India’s leading manufacturers of urea and phosphatic fertilisers. Its urea plant, located at Babrala in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, is the country’s most energy efficient fertiliser unit, and produces 12% of the country’s urea output in the private sector. Its foray into phosphatic fertilisers follows its merger this year with Hind Lever Chemicals Limited, a company of Unilever.

Tata Chemicals is also a pioneer and market leader in the branded, iodised salt segment. Its salt has a purity percentage of 99.8 per cent, the highest in the country.

An ISO-9001/14001 certified company, Tata Chemicals has a varied user industry base comprising glass, paper, textiles, food additives, petroleum, refining, chemicals, dyes, pesticides, direct farm application etc. With an export presence in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, it has set itself the objective of achieving global cost competitiveness in soda ash. The acquisition of an equal partnership in Indo Maroc Phosphore S.A. (IMACID) along with Chambal Fertilisers and the global phosphate major, OCP of Morocco recently, is the first step that TCL has taken towards Globalisation

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Chemicals

Tata Chemicals’ range of chemicals includes Soda Ash, Caustic soda, Bromine and Bromine-based compounds, and Gypsum. It has an installed capacity of 8,75,000 tonnes of soda ash per annum which is nearly 35% of India’s capacity. The salt works are spread over 60 sq km near the plant, generating over 2 million tonnes of solar salt - the basic raw material for almost all the chemicals that the company produces. The Mithapur plant also has a cement plant, originally set up to consume the solid waste generated at the plant.
Bulk chemicals like Sulphuric Acid, Phosphoric Acid and Sodium Tripoly Phosphate (STPP) are manufactured at its plant in Haldia, West Bengal. This unit produces about 60,000 T of STPP annually, about 65% of India’s capacity.

Fertilisers

Nitrogenous fertilisers are manufactured at Babrala plant which is considered one of the best industrial facilities in India and comparable to the best in the world. With a capacity of 8,64,000 tonnes of Urea per annum, this plant matches global standards in technology use, energy conservation, productivity and safety. It is the only fertiliser plant in the country to use dual feedstock: natural gas or naphtha, or a combination of both. It also houses an ammonia plant with a capacity of 1,350 tonnes per day.

The company’s phosphatic fertiliser plant at Haldia is an integrated complex for manufacture of bulk chemicals and phosphatic fertilisers like Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP), NPK complexes and Single Super Phosphate (SSP). With overall production volumes exceeding 1.2 million tonnes per annum, Tata Chemicals is a market leader in phosphatic fertilisers in the states of West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. The fertilisers are marketed in the most fertile region of the country in North and North Western states.

Food additives

Tata Chemicals’ food additives business has two of the company’s premium product groups under its wing: branded salt and sodiumbicarbonate.

Branded Salt: The company manufactures four varieties of salt: iodised salt, crystalline salt, vacuum salt and pure salt. With a 41% market share in the branded Salt segment in India and a reach of close to 35 million households, Tata Salt, today, is ranked as the No. 1 Food Brand in the list of India's Most Trusted Brands.

Sodium bicarbonate: The company produces three varieties of sodium bicarbonate - technical, refined and granular — at its 50,000 tonnes per annum plant. These are marketed in India, the Middle East, Africa and Bangladesh.

As part of its growth plans, Tata Chemicals has launched a branded cooking soda sold in small, single-use sachets under the brand name Tata Samunder Cooking Soda.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The ‘avoid, reduce and recycle’ philosophy that the company follows is exemplified best at its cement plant at Mithapur. The company is also a signatory to Responsible Care, a voluntary global initiative of the Chemical industry that demonstrates allegiance to safety, health and environmental issues. Mithapur and Babrala have won the highest British Safety Council 5-star rating. The company has also developed the Mithapur salt works as a natural habitat for thousands of migratory birds.

Tata Chemicals’ Society for Rural Development (TCSRD) nurtures rural populations in and around the facilities, and helps people achieve self-sufficiency in natural resource management, livelihood support through self-help groups and the building of health and education infrastructure.

For more information, please visit www.tatachemicals.com

DECEMBER 2005

THE TATA GROUP

The Tata Group is India’s best-known industrial group with a turnover of around US $ 17.8 billion (equivalent to 2.8 % of India’s GDP). Long known for its adherence to business ethics, it is India’s most respected private business group. With close to 215,000 employees across 93 major companies, it is also India’s largest employer in the private sector.

Founded by Jamsetji Tata in the 1860s, the Tata Group’s early years were inspired by the spirit of nationalism. The Tata Group pioneered several firsts in Indian industry: India’s first private sector steel mill, first private sector power utility, first luxury hotel chain and first international airline, amongst others. In more recent times, the Tata Group’s pioneering spirit continues to be showcased by companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), today Asia’s largest software and services company, and Tata Motors, the first car maker in a developing country to design and produce a car from the ground up.

The business operations of the Tata Group currently encompass seven business sectors - Engineering, Materials, Energy, Chemicals, Consumer Products, Services, and Communications and Information Systems. The scale of the Tata Group’s operations is increasingly turning global. Tata Tea is the first Indian MNC in the global tea industry and India's largest integrated tea company; Tata Chemicals is one of Asia’s largest manufacturers of soda ash; Titan Industries is the world’s sixth largest manufacturer brand and Tata Motors is amongst the top six medium and heavy commercial vehicle manufacturers in the world. The Tata Group is increasingly focusing on new technology areas, and has the largest footprint in India’s new economy; besides being the largest software services provider in the country, it is also one of the leading private sector telecom service providers, and is also India’s largest international long distance and Internet services provider.

The Tata brand is recognised as the largest homegrown brand in India and the most respected brand across consumer segments. The Tata Group’s stable of brands also includes many national and some internationally renowned product and service brands, including Tata Indica, Tata Indigo /Indigo Marina, Tata Safari, Tata Indicom, Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, IndiOne, Tata Tea, Tetley, Tata Salt, Titan, Tanishq, Voltas and Westside.

While a decade back the group was primarily India focused, it has expanded its operations around the world by entering new geographies and by investing in businesses worldwide. Some of the worldwide investments made by group include:

Daewoo commercial vehicle (CV), the Korean truck company
Financial Network Services (FNS), a leading Australian core banking solutions vendor
Comicron, market leader in Chile’s banking and pensions BPO business
IMACID, Morocco
Brunner Mond Group, UK
NatSteel, Singapore
Tetley, UK
Good Earth, USA
The Pierre, New York
The W-Sydney, boutique hotel in Australia
Tyco Global Network
Teleglobe International holdings Limited
INCAT international PLC, UK

In 2005, the group invested over US $ 2 Billion in geographies across the world. The companies like Tata Consultancy Services continue to lead the international expansion of the group in hi-tech areas like IT services with Global Delivery Centers in US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The long term commitment to excellence and ethical business practices, remain the underpinnings of the Tata group, as it continues its pursuit of “Leadership with Trust” and “Improving Quality of Life”.

The Tata Group has always believed in returning wealth to the society it serves. Thus, nearly two-thirds of the equity of Tata Sons, the Tata Group’s promoter company, is held by philanthropic trusts which have created a host of national institutions in community development, education and research centers, hospitals and scientific and cultural establishments. The Trusts also give substantial annual grants and endowments to deserving individuals and institutions in the areas of education, healthcare and social upliftment.

By combining ethical values with business acumen, globalization with national interests and core businesses with emerging ones, the Tata Group aims to be the largest and most respected global brand from India whilst fulfilling its long-standing commitment to improving the quality of life of its stakeholders.

For more details logon to www.tata.com