"The costs of key raw materials – such as propylene, ethylene, methanol, as well as other raw materials like tin – have remained persistently high," said Pierre Brondeau, executive vice president in charge of specialty materials. "Earlier in the year, there were strong indications that raw material prices would peak around mid-year, and then trail off during the second half of 2007. However, raw material prices have not come down. In fact, they have continued to increase. To date, these increases have added more than $100 million to our raw material costs in total.”