Dow Corning Puts $70 Million Behind Expansion for Hot Silicones Market

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Responding to buoyant global demand for silicones, Dow Corning (DC), owned 50/50 by Dow Chemicals (NYSE:DOW) (Midland, Michigan) and Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) (Corning, New York), has committed to an expansion program, with a facilities expansion investment of up to $70 million. The company has already increased its overall production volume of silicone-based products by 15%, with a year-on-year comparison of the first half of 2004 to the same period in 2003.

At the company's site at Barry, Wales in the U.K., which is claimed to be the world's largest silicone monomer feedstock source DC is implementing a 'stretch' project, which will come into operation in October and add 15% to the plant’s capacity.

The project involves installing new equipment as well as reliability improvements that have been identified through application of the six-sigma principles analysis. Courtney Rowe, global product line manager said, "This increase at the largest and most technologically advanced facility for the manufacture of silicone-based materials in the world, represents a significant increase in available product in the market."

In 2006, a de-bottlenecking and reliability improvement exercise will be undertaken at the Barry plant, where DC has been operating since 1953. Products made on the site include General-purpose polystyrene (GOS) used in cassette cases and sterile hospital disposables and high impact polystyrene (HIPS) used in dairy food packaging, television cabinets, and components for refrigerators.

In its global expansion plans, DC is linking up with its sometimes competitor Wacker Silicones (Munich, Strasbourg and Adrian, Michigan) for a new Chinese project that should see a world-scale facility completed by the end of the decade and a site has been acquired in India, with a view to setting up a plant.

Dow Corning Toray Silicone (DCTS), which has operated as a joint venture in Japan Between DC and Toray Industries (TOKYO:3402) since 1966, has formed a new company, Ling Dao Silicone (Shanghai), to use the DCTS technology and capability in the rubber industry. This new Shanghai venture began operations in March and serves customers in Asia, primarily from China, Hong Kong, Korea and India, giving them a broader product range with flexible supply of a competitive range of products. Russia and Korea have also seen a dramatic increase in demand for silicone-based materials. The product is used for keypads, general silicone rubber molding, wire and cable, flame retardant rubber, high voltage insulator rubber and oil resistant rubbers.

Dow Corning makes more than half its total sales outside the USA.