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Dow Corning To Abandon Tennessee Silicon Site

by Marc S. Reisch
December 22, 2014 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 92, Issue 51

Dow Corning will abandon its newly built but still unopened Hemlock Semiconductor polysilicon facility in Clarksville, Tenn. The company says the 10,000-metric-ton-per-year project was a victim of Chinese tariffs on imports of the solar-panel raw material from the U.S. It also points to continued oversupply of polysilicon. The firm will take a charge of about $1.6 billion for the closure. Its parents, Dow Chemical and Corning, will each take a charge of $500 million. Polysilicon competitor Wacker Chemie still plans to start up a new plant in Charleston, Tenn., in the second half of 2015. Wacker agreed in March to sell its European-made polysilicon to China at an undisclosed minimum price in return for a Chinese government promise not to charge antidumping tariffs. Separately, Dow Corning reduced by $1.3 billion an accounting of its remaining silicone breast implant liability. The firm reached a $3.2 billion settlement with implant recipients in 2004. As a result, Dow and Corning will each register a gain of $400 million.

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