NEWS RELEASE                                   JANUARY 2007

Market For Air Cartridges To Exceed $100 Million In Europe In 2010

Cartridges are finding increased use as gas turbine intake filters and also to replace tubular bags in dust collector applications.  The big growth is going to be in Asia, but there will be modest growth in Europe as well.  A new European analysis has been added to the online market reports: Air Filtration and Purification: World Markets and Fabric Filters and Elements: World Markets, published by the McIlvaine Company.

The market for cartridges, for gas turbines and dust collection has been determined for seven countries in Europe.  These countries comprise 70 percent of the GDP of Europe as follows:

France                                   13%

Germany                               18%

Italy                                       12%

Spain                                      7%

United Kingdom                    14%

Czech Republic                       1%

Poland                                     4%

% of Total Europe              70% 

The analysis includes the units and the revenue per unit.  The forecasts are based on the cartridge price as sold by the fabricator of the cartridge for typical orders.  It is recognized that for very large orders the price may be 60 percent of this number.

The prices are reported in various ways and vary depending on the size and media.  Some cartridges are smaller than 5m², and others are larger than 20m².  The average media content is 12m².  The media ranges from low cost cellulose to high cost PTFE.  The cartridge price ranges from less than $60 to more than $200.  Average prices for each industry have been determined based on the mix of media types being used.  The power industry uses few cartridges but those it does use are high priced.  The stone and cement industry would use cartridges with a lower selling price.

Revenue forecasts for the seven European countries are as follows: 

Cartridge Revenues Forecast for Selected European Countries

($millions at $1.20/euro)

The number of units consumed by these seven countries in 2007 will be:

Unit Usage Forecast for Selected European Countries

Gas turbines will be the largest single application followed by the chemical industry.  A large number of small industries provide the bulk of the dust collector market. 

Germany will remain the leading purchaser of dust collector cartridge units with purchases of 243,000 units in 2007.

Profiles for over 100 companies who sell and distribute air cartridges in Europe are included in the report.  They include companies which are European and U.S. based with Donaldson being the leading supplier.