MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Elastomers, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, will soon break ground on its planned world-scale NORDEL EPDM (ethylene propylene-diene terpolymer) facility in Plaquemine, La., which will utilize the company’s newest proprietary catalyst technology to enable products with high Mooney viscosity, according the company's press release.
"The planned NORDEL facility will position Dow as the only advanced post-metallocene producer globally, enabling a broader range of EPDM solutions for our customers, while also meeting increasing global demand for our current EPDM applications," said Kim Ann Mink, Ph.D., Business President, Dow Elastomers, Electrical & Telecommunications.
The facility, which will service customers globally, is expected to come online in 2016 and will leverage Dow’s comprehensive investment plan to serve its downstream businesses through increased ethylene and propylene production in the US Gulf Coast and to connect the company's US operations into feedstock opportunities from increasing supplies of shale gas.
Dow is the only EPDM producer globally that has announced expansion in the highly advantaged region.
Launched in 1963, NORDEL was touted for delivering breakthrough properties and benefits that natural rubber and even some synthetics at the time lacked, including: high resistance to ozone; serviceability across a broad range of temperatures; chemical and abrasion resistance; and durability against sunlight and weathering.
As MRC reported earlier, in March 2013, Dow Chemical signed a long-term ethylene off-take agreement with a new Japanese joint venture that will allow the chemical producer to enhance its performance plastics franchise. The joint venture is being formed between Japanese companies Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui & Co. to construct and operate a Linear Alpha Olefins unit on the US Gulf Coast.
Dow Elastomers is the largest global producer of metallocene EPDM, with more than 50 years of experience in a variety of application and market segments including transportation, building and construction, wire and cable and general rubber products.
The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber. In 2012, Dow had annual sales of approximately USD57 billion. The сompany's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 36 countries across the globe.
MRC