Arabian American Development Joins the Russell Microcap Index

DALLAS, July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arabian American Development Co. (Nasdaq: ARSD) today announced that it has been added to the Russell Microcap(R) Index.

Membership in the Russell Microcap Index, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.

Nick Carter, President and CEO, Arabian American Development, commented, "The addition to the Russell Microcap Index increases the credibility and the visibility of Arabian American Development Company within the investment community and validates our achievements and progress over the past several years."

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An industry-leading $4 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to them. Total returns data for the Russell Microcap and other Russell Indexes is available at http://www.russell.com/Indexes/performance/default.asp.

Annual reconstitution of Russell indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization to create the Russell 3000 Index and Russell Microcap. These investment tools originated from Russell's multi-manager investment business in the early 1980s when the company saw the need for a more objective, market-driven set of benchmarks in order to evaluate outside investment managers.

About Russell:

Russell Investments provides strategic advice, world-class implementation, state-of-the-art performance benchmarks and a range of institutional-quality investment products. Russell has $136 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2009, and serves individual, institutional and advisor clients in more than 40 countries. Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

About Arabian American Development Company (ARSD)

Arabian American owns and operates a petrochemical facility located in southeast Texas just north of Beaumont, specializing in high purity petrochemical solvents and other solvent type manufacturing. The Company is also the original developer and is now a 50% owner of a joint venture in a mining project in the Al-Masane area of Saudi Arabia which is under construction and is scheduled to be in production in late 2010. The mine 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 Report Forms 10-Q.

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

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

SOURCE Arabian American Development Co.