Dow's Cost-Cutting Plan Leads To Plant Closures

As part of a cost-cutting move meant to shed 5,000 jobs and save $700 million annually (see page 5), Dow Chemical is closing 20 plants. The company will accelerate previously announced plans to close its chlor-alkali plant in Oyster Creek, Texas, part of its Freeport, Texas, complex. The plant, with chlorine capacity of 380,000 metric tons per year, will be replaced in 2011 by a new chlor-alkali plant. In addition, Dow is closing styrene and derivatives facilities in Freeport; Pittsburg, Calif.; Varennes, Quebec; and Terneuzen, the Netherlands. The firm will also shutter its Nordel hydrocarbon rubber plant in Seadrift, Texas, and its Tyrin chlorinated polyethylene plant in Plaquemine, La. The company says charges related to the closures will range between $300 million and $400 million. On top of the plant closings, the company will write down a loss on the pending sale of its automotive-related business in Europe. And it is writing down the engineering costs for a once-planned joint venture in Oman.