Chairman's - FMC Corporation

Overview
Our Industrial Chemicals segment, which represents 36 percent of our 2009 consolidated revenues, has
low-cost positions in high volume inorganic chemicals including soda ash and hydrogen peroxide, complemented
by high value, niche positions in specialty alkali, phosphorus and peroxygen products.
Products and Markets
Industrial Chemicals: Industrial Chemicals:
2009 Sales Mix 2009 Revenue by Region Mix
56%
Latin America
Asia Pacific
Alkali 28% Foret 5%
16%
Peroxygens
Europe,
Middle East &
Africa
31%
13%
51%
North
America
Industrial Chemicals serves a diverse group of markets, from economically-sensitive industrial sectors to
technology-intensive specialty markets. We process and sell refined inorganic products that are sought by
customers for their critical reactivity or specific functionality in markets such as glass, detergents and pulp and
paper. In addition, we produce, purify and market higher value downstream derivatives into specialized and
customer-specific applications. These applications include electronics, biocides and animal nutrition.
Alkali
Our alkali chemical division produces natural soda ash. Soda ash is used by manufacturers in glass,
chemical processing and detergent industries. To lesser degrees, we also produce sodium bicarbonate, caustic
soda and sodium sesquicarbonate. The majority of our alkali sales are manufactured by and sold through FMC
Wyoming Corporation, which we manage as an integral part of our alkali business and in which we own shares
representing an 87.5 percent economic interest, with the remaining shares held by two Japanese companies.
We mine and produce natural soda ash using proprietary, low-cost mining technologies, such as longwall
and solution mining, which, we believe, give us the lowest cost position. Our two production sites in Green
River, Wyoming have the name plate capacity to produce approximately 4.85 million tons of soda ash annually,
with approximately 1.3 million tons of this capacity currently mothballed at December 31, 2009. For the past
several years, the U.S. soda ash industry was essentially sold out. As a result of this condition, during 2005 and
2006 we restarted 500,000 tons of previously mothballed capacity to meet the increase in demand driven by the
growth in export markets. In February, 2008 we announced the recommissioning of the remaining mothballed
capacity in Green River, Wyoming. Approximately 100,000 tons of this capacity was commissioned prior to the
end of 2008. We expected the remaining capacity, approximately 700,000 tons per year, to be fully online by
2012/2013 depending on export demand growth. However, with the economic downturn in 2009 resulting in a
drop in soda ash demand, we again mothballed the Granger facility and consolidated all of our soda ash
production at the Westvaco facility. We will restart the Granger operation as soda ash export market conditions
warrant its re-start.
Peroxygens
We produce hydrogen peroxide at production facilities in the United States and Canada, and, as described
below, through our wholly-owned Foret subsidiary, in Spain and the Netherlands. We also participate in a joint
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