The activity of the Chicago office has been transferred to Normandy, France. Your new contact at Normandy Development is Jean-Jacques Foignet, Director International Operations. He can be reached by phone
at +33 2 35 13 34 25, or by email.

Dresser-Rand Group Inc. will extend its test capabilities by constructing a new LNG (liquefied natural gas) test facility in Le Havre, France. This new test facility will have the capability to test very high flow/high horsepower applications.

According to Vincent R. Volpe Jr., President and CEO of Dresser-Rand Group Inc.: "Le Havre was chosen because of the extensive experience its employees have in the field of centrifugal compressor design and testing and the financial commitments made by the local and regional communities". This new facility will allow Dresser-Rand to complete extensive load tests on high horsepower/high flow compressor trains driven by electric motors or large gas turbines. Startup is targeted for 2007. Dresser-Rand is among the largest suppliers of rotating equipment solutions to the worldwide oil, gas, petrochemical, and process industries. The Company operates manufacturing facilities in the United States, France, Germany, Norway, India, and Brazil, and maintains a network of 24 service and support centers covering 105 countries.

Normandy-based Chevron Oronite gets threefold investment

US Chevron Texaco Group's plant Chevron Oronite, a lubricant and fuel additive specialist, set up in Gonfreville-l'Orcher (Normandy) will be receiving a threefold investment.

The 41 million-euro investment will have three phases, i.e., One, 20 million euros go to the finalization of a pilot project for the production of lubricant detergents without any hydrofluoric acid. The target is to shut down the current production chain of this type of product in 2008. Two, 18 million euros will be dedicated to building and outfitting a new detergent production line, which is scheduled to become operational in mid-2007.

Three million euros will be invested this year in a H2F (hydrogen sulfide) processing unit, which will be operational at the close of 2006. The environmental investment will buttress the safety of the industrial facilities and improve air quality.

Seropa Technology launched a first worldwide plastic injection production line

The latest success of the Normandy-based company Seropa, the global leader in chip card molds, consists of designing and manufacturing the first plastic injection production line of contactless cards, a world premier.

More efficient, this new production process is more economical, as well. It allows Seropa to reduce its products costs by cutting down the number of assembly machines and decreasing rejects. The company specializes in the design and construction of complex molds for plastic parts for the medical and pharmaceutical market, and molds for technical components or chip cards. For about fifteen years, the company had been working on the design and injection manufacture of chip cards. The pioneering company on the market of phone cards for public phone booths then went on to tackle the SIM card market. To date, some 150 card molds from Seropa Technology workshops are operating in Europe, Asia and Mexico. With the boom of contactless cards, unsurprisingly, the world's leader in chipcard molds soon took an interest in the technology.

Berger Lampe Diffusers, the art of living Normandy style

Berger Lampe diffusers, which came from the fertile mind of Maurice Berger in 1898, can still look forward to a long life. Calling on the talents of internationally acclaimed artists (such as Hilton McConnico) to transcend the object and turn it into a work of art, Berger Lampe has taken an original stance and successfully positioned the company on an upmarket niche.

Today the Normandy-based company boasts good financial results mainly due to the success of the famous catalysis lamp abroad (80% of its sales figure). In the United States and Canada (the group has a subsidiary in New York) sales passed the 25 million-dollar mark in 2005. Lampe Berger specialists, trendsetting creative designers, are always very much in demand. In its ongoing search for new materials, new perfumes and new products, Lampe Berger is a company firmly committed to innovation.