Research Triangle Park, North Carolina – November 3, 2006 – In a statement released today, Jeffrey Welker, president of Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex, reports that he sees no letup in the continuing cost and margin pressures that are undermining the economic health of the global glove dipping industry.

“Our monitoring of raw material pricing, manufacturing costs and finished glove pricing reveals the significant imbalance in our industry that has reached a critical point,” said Welker. “The disparity between current raw material costs, as well as forecasted costs, and stagnant finished glove pricing exemplifies the imbalance,” he said.

Welker points out that the Asian spot market price for butadiene monomer, the principal component in nitrile gloves, has increased 67 percent since January 2006, while glove pricing has remained virtually unchanged.

“That type of fundamental market imbalance and its effect on the long term health of our industry is very concerning,” Welker concluded.

Dow Reichhold announced a 15 percent price increase in September 2006 as a first step in improving margins on the company’s line of industry-leading synthetic polymers for gloves. In making that announcement Dave Gartshore, vice president for sales, said the company intended to be relentless in securing that increase and possible additional increases.

“At this time we don’t see any change in the market that would result in changing our position. Our actions to raise prices reflect business fundamentals in this industry and we intend to move forward to a more sustainable economic balance,” said Gartshore.

Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex and its parent company Reichhold Inc., have been part of the glove industry since the 1960’s. The company developed the nitrile latex technology that has become the synthetic latex of choice for glove manufacturing. Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex LLC is a 50/50 joint venture of The Dow Chemical Company and Reichhold Inc. The joint venture is the world’s largest producer of specialty latex. The company is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, U.S.A.

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