FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1997                           (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888


   FORMER EXECUTIVE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMMERCIAL
         EXPLOSIVES COMPANIES CHARGED WITH BID RIGGING
                                

     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A former executive of one of the world's
largest commercial explosives company--Salt Lake City-based DYNO
Nobel Inc.--was charged today with rigging bids on commercial
explosives contracts sold to two companies that do business in
Missouri, said the Department of Justice.

     Thus far, 12 explosives manufacturers and distributors,
including DYNO Nobel Inc., have pleaded guilty to antitrust
conspiracies in the Department's ongoing antitrust investigation
of the explosives and ammonium nitrate industries.  These
violations have resulted in nearly $40 million in fines for the
industry.  Commercial explosives are primarily used in the
mining, construction and oil and gas industries. 
 
     Today's one-count criminal case was filed in U.S. District
Court in Dallas against Donald J. Westmaas of Philadelphia. 
Westmaas was DYNO Nobel's Vice President of Marketing until 1993.

     The case charged that Westmaas and co-conspirators agreed to
rig certain 1992 dynamite contracts to a metal mining company based 
in Viburnum, Missouri, The Doe Run Co., and to ASARCO Inc.,
which has lead mines in Missouri.
  
     The Department charged that Westmaas and the co-conspirators
determined the price levels that Doe Run and ASARCO would pay for
commercial explosives, discussed and agreed that a subsidiary of
another explosives company, ICI Explosives USA Inc., would submit
an intentionally high bid to Doe Run, and agreed that in exchange
for ICI Explosives' high bid to Doe Run, that DYNO Nobel would
submit an intentionally high bid to ASARCO.  The purpose of the
conspiracy was to allow the companies to submit bids that were
artificially higher than they should have been.

     "The Antitrust Division will vigorously prosecute anyone who
undermines the Sherman Act by fixing prices or rigging bids,"
said Joel I. Klein, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the
Department's Antitrust Division.

     The charge results from an ongoing investigation of the
commercial explosives industry being conducted by the Division's
Litigation I Section with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

     The maximum penalty for an individual convicted of a Sherman
Act violation committed after November 16, 1990, is three years
imprisonment and a fine of the greatest of $350,000, twice the
pecuniary gain the individual derived from the crime, or twice
the pecuniary loss suffered by the victims of the crime.
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