Nalco Sees Continued Pricing Progress, Targets 2H Margin Improvement

NAPERVILLE, Ill., June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Nalco (NYSE: NLC) continues to achieve good price increase progress to offset higher raw material costs and will seek additional price increases as necessary to offset any further raw material inflation, the Company said today in advance of an investor webcast review next week on its water and paper segments.

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Details on price increase progress, the 2011 outlook and progress executing growth strategies in the global Water and Process Services segment will be discussed in a previously scheduled June 28 business review webcast with Dave Flitman, Senior Executive Vice President and President, Water and Process Services. The webcast event will be available at www.nalco.com/investors.

"We have been actively negotiating prices at all accounts throughout this year," said Nalco Chairman and CEO Erik Fyrwald. "In the critical North American water and paper businesses, we had pricing agreements in place by the end of April with 75 percent of our customers and have continued to finalize agreements that we expect will cover our cost increases on a run-rate basis by the end of the third quarter. Based on our progress, including previously discussed efforts in Energy Services which were highlighted in an investor call with Steve Taylor on May 31, we expect margin improvement in the second half of this year with 4th quarter margins more consistent with our historical norms."

Water and Process Services Business Review
Date: 6/28/2011
Start Time: 10 a.m. ET / 9 a.m. CT / 8 a.m. MT / 7 a.m. PT
Length: 60 minutes
Dial-in Telephone Number:    1-913-312-1438
Confirmation Code:                 6595515
To help ensure the conference call begins in a timely manner, please dial in five to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time.

The webcast of Mr. Flitman's presentation will be available through the Investor Relations section of Nalco's website, www.nalco.com/investors. Following the live event, an archived version of the webcast will also be available on the site under Investor Relations, Archived Presentations. An archive of Mr. Taylor's May 31 webcast is currently available under Investor Relations, Archived Presentations.

About Nalco

Nalco is the world's largest sustainability services company focused on industrial water, energy and air applications; delivering significant environmental, social and economic performance benefits to our customers. We help our customers reduce energy, water and other natural resource consumption, enhance air quality, minimize environmental releases and improve productivity and end products while boosting the bottom line. Together our comprehensive solutions contribute to the sustainable development of customer operations. Nalco is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indexes. More than 12,000 Nalco employees operate in 150 countries supported by a comprehensive network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and research centers to serve a broad range of end markets. In 2010, Nalco achieved sales of $4.25 billion. For more information visit www.nalco.com.

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SOURCE Nalco