Chairman of the Board of Management

Transcription

1 LANXESS Rubber Day Germany Wednesday, September 21, 2011 Speech by LANXESS AG Contact: Daniel Smith Corporate Communications Financial and Business Media Relations Leverkusen Germany Phone Fax lanxess.com Dr. Axel C. Heitmann Chairman of the Board of Management of LANXESS AG (Please check against delivery) ( e)

2 Minister Voigtsberger, ladies and gentlemen, Page 2 of 7 good morning and welcome to LANXESS. Welcome to a day with the inventor of synthetic rubber! When we celebrated the first hundred years of this outstanding material two years ago, we held our first scientific colloquium on the subject in Cologne. Since the early 20th century, synthetic rubber has accompanied the advance of so many new technologies some of which could not have been introduced without it! And today, early in the 21st century, synthetic rubber continues to be a success story, with the global megatrend of mobility boosting demand throughout the world. However, this megatrend is also creating more and more new challenges for tire manufacturers and their rubber suppliers. This is because, if more and more people across the world are driving cars, our increased mobility will have to be much more environmentally friendly. That will come about partly through new propulsion systems, but also with the help of new tire technologies! About 30 percent of the fuel a car burns is needed to overcome rolling resistance! So it s only logical that a labelling requirement for tires is to be introduced in the E.U. from That way, customers can see at a glance which tires leave behind the smallest environmental footprint. And it's certainly right that labelling is already under consideration in the countries that will see the strongest growth in mobility in the future: the emerging markets of Asia and South America. We at LANXESS welcome this development. And we have exactly the products that tire manufacturers throughout the world need to meet these increasing demands. Because reducing rolling resistance isn't enough. The overriding consideration continues to be the magic

3 triangle of environmental compatibility, service life and braking performance. Page 3 of 7 And rubber products that measure up to these requirements have little in common with the rubbers of the past. Today's synthetic rubber is more than ever a high-tech material! I would even go so far as to say that today, two years after the 100th anniversary, we are again on the threshold of a technological revolution: what's happening now is that the black tire is going "green." Today we're talking about high-performance materials that at the same time make even bigger contributions than before to climate protection and sustainability. Of course I know that words like these are rather over-used these days. You hear them everywhere. But in the rubber business they really mean something: because if you reduce rolling resistance, you make cars more environmentally friendly. If we could switch the tires on all the world's cars overnight to the best materials that are currently available, this alone would save up to 20 billion liters of fuel annually and therefore reduce CO2 emissions by 50 million metric tons a year. Of course that's a hypothetical view. But it shows what this business is about today. It's about developing and producing the premium products that will help to put the best possible green tires on the road in the shortest possible time. And, ladies and gentlemen, another factor will play at least as important a role at this Rubber Day: the need to make the production of rubber itself more environmentally friendly and, even more importantly, more sustainable. As you know, we have so far produced the base material for car tires and many other products mainly from petroleum derivatives. In other words, on the basis of oil.

4 But, as we know, that basis is crumbling. Global oil reserves are being consumed more and more quickly. And they are going to run out. Whether this will happen in 30 or in 50 years isn't really the point. It's already certain that we have to find a way to grow the economy without corresponding growth in resource consumption and climate damage. Page 4 of 7 That is the way forward. Not an end to growth. Not less growth. But sustainable growth! That's what LANXESS stands for. And more than anything, that's what our expertise in rubber stands for. We see ourselves as enablers of sustainable growth, of premium products and of premium production! And by the way, the fact that you our customers reward this expertise is also clear from the pleasing trend in the third quarter, in which we expect to see a further improvement in earnings compared with the same period of last year. And I can also confirm our raised forecast for 2011: we will increase our EBITDA pre exceptionals by roughly 20 percent compared with And the calculation premium technology plus sustainability and environment and climate protection make sense for the whole economy as well. Management consultants Roland Berger, for example, already put the size of the market for modern environmental technologies at over 1 trillion euros, and believe it could reach 2.2 trillion by The German government estimates that the additional investment necessary to implement its climate and energy policy objectives will create some 500,000 jobs in Germany by 2020 and more than 800,000 by And that's another reason why we at LANXESS continue in the pursuit of sustainability. I am pleased that our company has now become a new member of the most important global index for sustainability, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index World.

5 This shows that our production is sustainable for example in Germany, where we have lowered our climate-relevant emissions by more than 80 percent. Page 5 of 7 Our products as used in their respective applications make a tremendous contribution to sustainable development such as those that ensure a vital resource like water is more efficiently used. Just a few days ago, we commissioned a new chemical plant in Bitterfeld where we make products for global use in smart water treatment technologies. And for us, of course, the sustainability principle is also crucial when it comes to innovative raw materials. In this area, particularly, we're moving in entirely new directions in other words, away from oil and toward renewable raw materials. And that means bio-based rubber! This is certainly among the outstanding topics for this rubber symposium. And above all, it's of great importance for our daily work. Our cooperation partner in the United States, the biotechnology company Gevo, has succeeded in developing a process in which biomass from forage corn is used as a raw material for the production of butyl rubber. And what s more, the process doesn't only function in the laboratory. It works on an industrial scale too. We could be in a position to manufacture tens of thousands of tons of bio-rubber in less than five years time. But that s not all. Today we're going to be speaking in public for the first time about another step toward bio-based chemistry: the production of EPDM from sugarcane. And that's nothing short of a world premiere! Starting at the end of 2011, we can supply you with EPDM based on sugarcane rather than oil under the brand name Keltan. Ethanol from

6 this basic raw material is dehydrated to form ethylene, which we can then use as a raw material for the production of rubber. Page 6 of 7 It's developments like these, ladies and gentlemen, that we're referring to when we say that LANXESS is a premium producer of top products that give our customers major advantages: advantages through technology, advantages through innovation, and advantages through significant value-added! And developments like these show that things are moving. These days we're talking a lot about the problems that concern us here in Germany, in Europe and around the world. And there are indeed grounds for reflection. But there are also moments like these. They show that innovation isn't just a buzzword. It's really happening in Germany too, and at German companies. And here, at the LANXESS Rubber Day 2011, we're telling you about the results which, by the way, also include innovations in areas such as rubber chemicals, processing promoters and release agents. How important this information is for us at LANXESS, and also how important the subject has now become throughout the world, should be clear from the fact that our Rubber Day this year is not only taking place here in Germany. Following the three highly successful colloquia held last year in China, India and Brazil, we are organizing rubber conferences this fall in Japan, South Korea, and again in China. In Brazil we will be holding our first "Automotive Day" in a few weeks' time. At that event, too, we will shed light on as many aspects as possible of mobility and its effects with the help of experts and scientists. More events of this kind will follow next year. Ladies and gentlemen, we're very pleased to have you all here as our guests.

7 And I'm especially pleased that you, Ms. Ruge, have agreed to be our moderator again this year and will accompany us all through today's extensive program. Page 7 of 7 I hope we will all have an informative and exciting Rubber Day 2011 at LANXESS! Thank you very much. Forward-Looking Statements. This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by LANXESS AG management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.