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NOVA Chemicals' polystyrene business in Chile consists of an expandable polystyrene (EPS) plant and processing facility in Quilicura, near Santiago, and and EPS processing facility in El Tepual, near Puerto Montt, Chile. These two sites were operated for ten years by Shell Chemicals and were acquired by NOVA Chemicals in early 2000.

Today, our Chilean EPS business is one of two market leaders in both the molded packaging and block molded insulation/construction markets - maintaining close customer relationships and providing high-value products and services to our customers. In fact, a large percentage of the EPS beads that are manufactured are converted internally into higher-value performance products that are used in the growing Chile housing and construction market.

The Chilean business operates within national and local statutory requirements accordingly. It also has a Responsible Care^® and Health, Safety & Environment management program in place for establishing appropriate operating procedures, training programs, audits and management reviews for evaluating continuous improvement projects.

Approximately 60% of the EPS production in Chile is molded for use in construction applications such as floors, walls and roofs, with EPS blocks used for industrial insulation. The remaining 40% of the EPS market supports molded packaging and is used for producing fish boxes, cups, containers and fruit & vegetable transportation boxes. The fish export market in Chile has grown significantly during the past ten years and represents one of Chile's largest export markets.

The Quilicura site is located to the northwest of Santiago and is situated just 1 kilometer from the main north/south Chilean highway. The plant was constructed in 1983 and currently has about 35 employees who produce 3.5 kilotonnes of EPS annually: fast expanding regular grade and fast expanding flame-retardant grade.

Both styrene and pentane are received on site from third-parties and are used as the primary raw materials for EPS production. The plant has four batch reactors for producing EPS and also has a conversion plant located on the same site as the polymerization operations. This conversion plant is capable of handling block molding, sheet and contour cutting, and shape molding - with an annual conversion capacity of more than 2.3 kilotonnes annually.

ADDRESS: Av. Manuel A. Matta #1764, Quilicura-Santiago
PHONE: (56-2) 6033359-6279025-6276843
FAX: (56-2) 6039664

The El Tepual plant is on a 5 hectare site located in Puerto Montt, which is approximately 1000 kilometers south of Santiago and is 12 kilometers from the Puerto Montt harbor - a seaside salmon farming region. The plant was constructed in 1989 and has a capacity to convert more than 2.1 kilotonnes of EPS beads per year. El Tepual has approximately 15 full-time employees, along with a variety of contractors whom they share with the Quilicura site for the administration side of their business operations.

El Tepual is a fully functional EPS conversion facility and receives their raw materials - EPS beads - from NOVA Chemicals U.S. facilities, as well as from the Quilicura site. Nine molding machines are used to maunfacture insulated concrete forms for the building and construction industry, produce containers and fish boxes. El Tepual's location is superior for servicing the fishing industry, as the boxes are molded and printed on site, then wrapped to preserve cleanliness during transfer to the local fish exporters.

The El Tepual site is ISO 9001:2000 certified.

ADDRESS: Ruta 226 KM.7, El Tepual-Puerto Montt
PHONE: (56-65) 257130-257134-276682
FAX: (56-65) 267912