29-Mar-17 The Dow Chemical Company has announced the completion of the construction phase of its new, world-scale ethylene production facility in Freeport, Texas. The Company reached this milestone within one week of the originally planned date, which was set approximately two years ago. Dow’s ethylene unit is now progressing through the commissioning phase, with start-up expected by mid-year.
“This tremendous milestone represents the Dow team’s unwavering ability to deliver on our commitments to meet the needs of our customers, generate value for our shareholders and to create opportunities for our employees,” said Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chairman and CEO. “The Freeport ethylene unit is the cornerstone of our US$6 bln investment in the U.S. Gulf Coast. Our growth investments leverage the advantaged shale gas supply available in the U.S., and represent thousands of new jobs and significant economic value, including exports of approximately 20% of our U.S. production.”
“I’m incredibly proud of our team’s efforts to complete the complex construction phase of Dow’s new state-of-the-art ethylene facility. This unit will further enhance Dow’s industry-leading integration and provide the critical building blocks to bolster our competitive advantage in targeted consumer-led markets, including packaging, transportation, infrastructure and consumer care,” said Jim Fitterling, Dow’s president and chief operating officer. “Not only does this investment leverage Dow’s early-mover advantage in shale gas, but it will also fuel the industry’s broadest and most differentiated derivatives slate, featuring Dow’s proprietary catalyst and process technologies, to meet growing consumer demand throughout the Americas.”
The world-scale production unit with a nameplate capacity of 1.5 mln metric tons – is a central component of Dow’s US$6 billion U.S. Gulf Coast investment program, designed to strengthen the competitiveness of its downstream, consumer-led businesses. It will feed Dow’s derivative investments, which will come on-line throughout 2017 and 2018 and include:
* ELITE™ Enhanced Polyethylene for high performance flexible food packaging and personal hygiene applications (Capacity:400 KTA);
* New specialty low density polyethylene for industrial and supply chain packaging applications (Capacity:350 KTA);
* Next Generation NORDEL™ metallocene EPDM to deliver solutions for higher-margin applications for the transportation, infrastructure and consumer durables end-markets (Capacity:200 KTA);
* High Melt Index Specialty and Conventional Polyolefin Elastomers for high-performance flexible packaging, transportation and consumer markets (Capacity:320 KTA); and
* Bi-modal gas phase de-bottleneck to enable more offerings for high-performance pipe and fitting applications, as well as the cap and closure market (125 KTA).
