Question-and-Answer Session
Thank you Mr. Walter. [Operator Instructions].
William G. Walter - Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer
What, are we that good.
Operator
And at this time there are no questions.
William G. Walter - Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer
Operator, are you confident that the system is working? It is shocking that we would have no questions. Could anybody...
Operator
Okay and we do have a question from Kevin McCarthy with Banc of America.
Kevin McCarthy - Banc of America
Good morning Bill, couple of question I guess maybe on soda ash and maybe Michael can help with this as well. It sounds like you have very strong realizations for '08, can you talk a little bit about domestic realizations versus international and then what were gross prices up internationally and where do you see net backs given ocean freight costs and so forth?
William G. Walter - Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer
Kevin I am going to ask Michael to answer your question.
Michael D. Wilson - Vice President and General Manager, Industrial Chemicals
Hi Kevin, this is Michael. As I have indicated in my prepared comments, the overall price increase that we saw in soda ash was in the mid teens across domestic and ANSAC. Domestic and exports as a whole pricing and I really don't want to get much more specific in that in terms of the breakdown between domestic and export just for market sensitivities and competitive reasons. But what I did indicate is that there is a substantial narrowing of the price differential between domestic and export pricing so that implies to you that we did realize significantly higher increases in the export market than we did in the domestic market.
Kevin McCarthy - Banc of America
And as a follow up we have seen two of your competitors acquired at least just announcements of deals over the last 6 to 8 weeks. Can you comment on any changes you expect as a consequence of those transactions in terms of industry structure participation in ANSAC and those sorts of things?
Michael D. Wilson - Vice President and General Manager, Industrial Chemicals
Yes Kevin at this point I don't have any direct knowledge that would indicate me to believe there is going to be any structural changes. Clearly with the most recent announcement of Tata buying in General we are moving from a private equity owner to a strategic owner. We think as and this is a speculation that is Tata has valued that business that one of the things they are valuing is the ANSAC participation for all the reasons that we think ANSAC benefits our customers. Superb logistics, a multi supplier networks so I don't have any direct knowledge but I believe Tata is probably excited to be acquiring a company that is part of ANSAC.
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