WILMINGTON, DE, January 14, 2008 . . . Hercules Tianpu Chemicals, a 40% owned joint venture company of Hercules Incorporated (NYSE: HPC), reported an incident on January 13th at one of the methylcellulose production lines in China. Initial assessments by the joint venture indicate that the incident may have been caused by a fire in a filtering system in final packaging. Necessary resources have been deployed to insure restoration of operations.

Two employees were injured. Both are being treated and are expected to make a full recovery.

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