At the end of a European tender offer, GRTgaz, a subsidiary of Gaz de France, has just signed a contract of more than 55 million euros with a consortium composed of Litwin, as principal, and its partners, Friedlander and Cegelec. This contract is for the building of a natural gas compressor station at Saint Victor in the Allier department, central France.

Since 2007, GRTgaz has undertaken the upgrading and renovation of its natural gas compression capacity, within the frame of its OSCAR (Compressor Station Optimisation and Network Adaptation) program.

The work on the site of Saint Victor will be carried out between 2008 and 2010, and is one of the batches of the second part of the GRTgaz compressor stations upgrading. The first part of the OSCAR program had been awarded to the same consortium in December 2006.

The objective of the OSCAR program is threefold:

•           Increase the gas transportation capacity to meet the customers’ needs,

•           Comply with the new environmental requirements, more particularly by reducing the CO2 and nitrogen oxides (NOx),

•           Replace the obsolete equipment.

The new station, located very near the existing Saint Victor station equipped with gas turbines, will include two 5 MW compressors driven by motors. This new generation station will contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly CO2 and nitrogen oxides (NOx).

The compressor stations are located at regular intervals (every 120 to 150 km) on the gas pipes to compensate the pressure losses caused by the natural gas travel within the pipes. These stations allow the natural gas transport network to be used in the best technical and economical conditions.

Notes to  Editors:

About GRTgaz

GRTgaz, a fully owned subsidiary of Gaz de France, is in charge of the development, operation and marketing of the natural gas transportation network (31,717 km) to the industrial customers and public distributions over about 80 % of France. GRTgaz carries out its activities with a constant objective of transparency (www.grtgaz.com) and non-discrimination among the different natural gas suppliers in the French market. GRTgaz plans to invest 600 million euros in 2008 (372 million euros in 2007) to develop its industrial tool (gas pipelines, compressor stations, etc.) and to strengthen the attractiveness of the French market in the natural gas sector.

About Litwin

Litwin is a French engineering company specialized in the management of turnkey EPC projects for the oil, gas, chemical products, industry, energy and environment sectors. Litwin is a subsidiary of Bateman Litwin Group (www.bateman-litwin.com), listed in the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, since June 2006. Litwin employs about 1,200 persons over the world from 20 different nationalities.

For more information, please visit www.litwin.fr

About Cegelec

Cegelec is an integrated world group of technological services for companies and the public sector. Cegelec offers efficient solutions in the following fields: energy, electricity, automation, instruments and measurements, IT and communication, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering and maintenance.

For more information, please visit www.cegelec.com

About Friedlander

Friedlander Groupe ORTEC is one of the European leaders in services and consultancy for the industry and the nuclear and environment sectors. As OEM, Friedlander undertakes major piping and mechanical fitting sites, in France and abroad in the energy, mining and agrobusiness sectors.

For more information, please visit www.friedlander.fr

Media Contacts:

Litwin

Corinne Collain

Communications Manager                            Tel: +33(0)1 72 25 50 94  

Litwin

Amel Karim

Press Agent –                                             Tel: +33 (0) 4 72 33 65 98