Albemarle Names Karen G. Narwold Senior Vice President and General Counsel

BATON ROUGE, La., Aug. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) announced today that Karen G. Narwold has joined the company as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Ms. Narwold will assume responsibility for all legal matters related to the corporation on September 13, 2010.

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Albemarle Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark C. Rohr said, "We are pleased to welcome Karen to Albemarle.  Her breadth of business and legal experiences and her strong background in strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions will certainly add to the strength of our leadership team."

Ms. Narwold has over 20 years of experience with industrial and chemical companies.  After five years in private practice at a large law firm, Ms. Narwold joined the Law Department of Union Carbide Corporation's then wholly owned subsidiary, GrafTech International Ltd. She rose to become Vice President, General Counsel, Human Resources and Secretary of GrafTech, a global company with manufacturing facilities on five continents and more than 120 years of experience in the carbon and graphite industry.  In her role at GrafTech, Ms. Narwold led all matters related to corporate governance, served as principal internal compliance officer, and served as primary legal counsel for several global acquisitions and joint ventures and over $2 billion in capital-raising, credit facility and other corporate transactions.  Recently, Ms. Narwold served as Vice President and Strategic Counsel of Barzel Industries, a major North American steel processor, tube manufacturer and metals distributor, where she led the design, implementation and management of its capital structure as well as the execution of its mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, including the sale of substantially all of its assets in late 2009.  Most recently, she served as Special Counsel with Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and with Symmetry Advisors where she worked in the areas of strategic, financial and capital structure planning and restructuring for public and private companies.

Ms. Narwold graduated summa cum laude and received her B.A. from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT.  She graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law in West Hartford, CT in 1986.

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a leading global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of highly-engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics, petroleum refining, utilities, packaging, construction, automotive/transportation, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, food-safety and custom chemistry services. The Company is committed to global sustainability and is advancing its eco-practices and solutions in its three business segments, Polymer Solutions, Catalysts and Fine Chemistry. Corporate Responsibility Magazine recently selected Albemarle to its prestigious "100 Best Corporate Citizens" list for 2010.  Albemarle employs approximately 4,000 people and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. To learn more, visit www.albemarle.com.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Albemarle Corporation's business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

SOURCE Albemarle Corporation