Jeffrey M. Lipton
President and Chief Executive Officer

We have just completed the third year of what has been the longest and deepest trough the chemical industry has experienced in my forty-year career. NOVA Chemicals has been battered by continued weak demand and the resultant excess capacity in petrochemicals and plastic resins. In addition, highly volatile energy prices and a lack of confidence in future demand growth have led our customers to reduce inventories to record low levels. The result has been a third year of losses for NOVA Chemicals and most others in the same segments of our industry.

We showed some improvement in 2003. Net losses before unusual items were reduced from $148 million in 2002 to $118 million, or $1.36 loss per share. We delivered on our commitments and sold non-strategic assets for good prices. This reduced our loss per share after unusual items from $1.30 in 2002 to $.02 in 2003.

Despite a very difficult operating environment, NOVA Chemicals' shareholder returns were quite good.