Ron Franklin Brings 30 Years of Process Industry Experience to Company

DALLAS, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arabian American Development Co. (Nasdaq: ARSD) today announced that on November 10, 2009, Ronald R. Franklin joined the Company as Manager of Business Development for its petrochemical unit, South Hampton Resources, Inc.

Mr. Franklin brings 30 years of Process Industry experience, including responsibilities as Operations Director, Plant Manager, and Project Manager. Before he joined Arabian American Development, Mr. Franklin had his own process industry consulting business with a specialization in merger and acquisition due diligence and process improvement. From November 2007 to March 2009 when he formed his consulting business, Mr. Franklin was Health and Safety Manager for Flint Hills Resources, Port Arthur, Texas, which acquired the Base Chemicals Division of Huntsman Corporation. Mr. Franklin was Operations Excellence Manager at the time of the acquisition. Mr. Franklin spent a total of 13 years with Huntsman in a variety of management positions including Director of Operations for the Propylene Oxide/ MTBE plant operations. In that position he managed the plant production, maintenance, engineering, safety, and the business segment logistics group. He also spent time as the Director of Operations (Surfactants), North America, Huntsman Surface Sciences. Prior to that period, he was a plant manager for a Huntsman C4 plant and held a variety of superintendent positions as well. Mr. Franklin started his career with Texaco Chemical as a college intern and remained with them from 1979 until 1994 when Texaco Chemical was sold to Huntsman Corporation. He held a variety of positions at Texaco Chemical from electrical engineering support to supervisory positions that included design and construction projects for several different chemical plants on a multitude of continuous and batch processes.

Mr. Franklin commented, "South Hampton Resources has a solid reputation in the industry for product quality, consistency and customer service. I'm honored to be joining them and sharing my expertise with the Company. Many people in our industry accumulate a life time of broad range experience, but don't find a golden opportunity such as this to use all that they know. I'm excited about being in a position to help develop new ideas and ventures."

Nick Carter, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We welcome Ron to the Company. He brings an incredible depth of experience and he will provide invaluable assistance with corporate projects as well as develop synergies which may be beneficial to both Arabian American Development and our operational unit, South Hampton Resources. With the mining joint venture moving along nicely towards an operational startup date, and the market gains we are making in the petrochemical sector due to our 2008 capacity expansion, we felt it was time to add some expertise to help us find and evaluate and implement new processes, or business combinations which will help the Company continue its momentum toward growth."

About Arabian American Development Company (ARSD)

ARSD owns and operates a petrochemical facility located in southeast Texas just north of Beaumont which specializes in high purity petrochemical solvents and other solvent type manufacturing. The Company is also the original developer and an equity investor in a Saudi Arabian joint stock company involving a mining project in the Al-Masane area of Saudi Arabia which is currently under construction. The mine is scheduled to be in production in late 2010 and will produce economic quantities of zinc, copper, gold, and silver.

Safe Harbor

Statements in this release that are not historical facts are forward looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements are based upon management's belief as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Because such statements are based upon expectations as to future economic performance and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ from those projected. These risks, as well as others, are discussed in greater detail in Arabian American's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Arabian American's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 and the Company's subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

    Company Contact:    Nick Carter, President and Chief Executive Officer
                        (409) 385-8300
                        ncarter@southhamptonr.com

    Investor Contact:   Cameron Donahue
                        Hayden IR
                        (651) 653-1854
                        Cameron@haydenir.com

SOURCE Arabian American Development Co.