Dow to close Seadrift EPDM plant

ERJ staff report (TB)

Midland, Michigan -- The plant closings planned for 2009 by Dow Chemical Co. will include the firm's EPDM plant in Seadrift, Texas and a chlorinated polyethylene (Tyrin) plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dow makes its Nordel-MG brand EPDM at the facility, which has annual capacity to make 110,000 metric tons of the material annually, according to information from the International Institute of Synthetic Rubber Producers. The plant is the only gas-phase production process for EPDM in the world. Dow's only other EPDM facility is in Plaquemine, La., with capacity of 100,000 tons, which uses a more conventional production process.

The former Union Carbide plant in Seadrift, Texas had a nominal capacity of 90 kt/year when it was built in the 1990s. That plant makes EPDM using gas-phase polymerisation under the Nordel MG name. However, it was known to be operating at well below nominal capacity when the Union Carbide business was acquired by Dow Chemical. Also, before converting to matallocene catalysis, the Unipol process produced material with a pronounced and unpleasant odour, making it unsaleable in the marketplace. The plant makes EPDM in pellet form with a blend of carbon black. The plant was transferred form Dow to DuPont-Dow (DPDE) in late 2001 and DPDE brought the plant on stream in 2002 using the Insite metallocene technoology and said at the time that the change in catalyst might allow output of more than 110 kt/year.

The closing is part of a Dow restructuring that will see the company close 20 plants, sell off several nonstrategic businesses and temporarily idle 180 additional plants.

From Rubber & Plastics News (A Crain publication)

SEC filing from Dow