INTERNATIONAL
Dow Steps Up Activity in Europe Company has new European headquarters in Switzerland, and offices and plants in seven European countries The recent start of production of Dow Chemical's 16,000 ton-a-year polystyrene plant at Livorno, Italy, and the start-up last year of a polystyrene plant at Lavrion in Greece are signs of an aggressive drive by Dow to expand its overseas operations, especially those in Europe.
This year, Dow Chemical forecasts that its total sales will come close to $1 billion. Although the company gives no detailed breakdown of its sales revenues, sales of its wholly owned international subsidiaries are about 15% of the combined total of Dow's sales. Its sales in Europe, which are
Dow's European Production Facilities Include: Wholly Owned Location
Company Name
Product
Dobeckmun Europa, N.V.
Amsterdam, Holland
Lurex metallic yarns
Dow Agrochemicals, Ltd.
King's Lynn, England
Biochemicals
Dow Chemical Co. (U.K.), Ltd.
Windsor, England
Lurex metallic yarns
Dow Chemical, S.p.A.
Livorno, Italy
Polystyrene
Dow Chemical International, N.V.
Rotterdam, Holland
Chemical complex under construction at Terneuzen for chemicals, plastics, and Styrofoam. Bulk terminal facilities and latex manufacturing at Rotterdam. Saran film plant under construction in Rotterdam
Dow Hellenic Chemical Industry, Ltd.
Lavrion, Greece
Polystyrene
Joint Ventures Ownership
Company Name
Product
Distrene, Ltd., Barry, Wales
Dow 50% Distillers Co., Ltd. 50%
Polystyrene
Dow-Unquinesa, S.A., Bilbao, Spain
Dow 50% Public ownership 50%
Basic organics and inorganics at several locations in northern Spain. Plastics complex planned at Tarragona
Staatsmijnen-Dow Fenol, N.V., Dow 50% Phenol Staatsmijnen in Limburg Rotterdam, Holland (Dutch State Mines) 50% Envases y Recubrimientos, S.A., Madrid, Spain
Dow 50% Private investment 50%
Flexible packaging
Plastichimie, S.A., Paris, France
Dow 49% Pechiney-St. Gobain 51% Dow 50% Rio Tinto-Zinc Co, 50%
Polystyrene, saran resin
Thorium, Ltd., Widnes, England 64
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OCT. 21, 196 3
Rare earth chemicals, thorium
up considerably over previous years, contribute more than half of the 15%. Dow is investing heavily in Europe. Existing projects will bring the company's European investment total to about $40 million. There are immediate commitments for an additional $40 million of investments by 1965. Build-Up. During the past 10 years Dow has worked hard to introduce its products to countries outside the U.S. Macauley Whiting, who took over as director of Dow's overseas operations in 1962, has continued the build-up of Dow Chemical International's staff at Midland, Mich. In Zurich, Switzerland, he has established a European area administration that operates essentially as a division. Head of the European operations is Zoltan Merszei, vice president for Europe of Dow International. Reporting to him are directors of marketing and purchasing, product and planning, and manufacturing. Also in Zurich are resident sales managers representing Dow's major product lines. Recognizing that Europe offers a large and relatively compact market area, Dow has established subsidiary marketing companies or offices in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Approach. "We are employing the same approach in establishing and maintaining a direct producer-customer relationship here as we do in the United States," Mr. Merszei says. The $2.7 million Livorno polystyrene plant, for example, has an extensive technical service laboratory. This lab is equipped for pilot-type injection molding, sheet extrusion, and vacuumforming to assist customers. It also includes a polystyrene color chip "library," where a customer may choose from more than 10,000 different color formulations, each with a detailed performance specification. "We are thus making available the same service to industrial designers that we already take as a matter of course at home," Mr. Merszei adds.
German Firms Ready New Ethylene Capacity Three new plants, one expansion increase capacity by almost 60%
POLYSTYRENE. Dow Chemical's plant in Italy to make polystyrene started operating at Livorno in late September 1963
Products. Dow's decision to concentrate its first European production efforts in polystyrene is a natural outgrowth of the company's considerable background experience in the technology of that particular product. However, plans for the manufacture of other Dow products in Europe are in the works. Construction has already begun on a large complex at Terneuzen in southwest Netherlands, which will make ethylene and propylene oxides, glycols, polyglycols, ethylene-amines, polystyrene, and S tyrofoam foamed polystyrene. In Rotterdam, Dow already has a styrene-butadiene latex plant and a bulk terminal facility. Also going up at Rotterdam is Europe's first saran film plant. Vinylidene chloride polymer will be supplied by Plastichimie, S.A., of France, owned jointly by Dow and Pechiney-Saint Gobain. Joint Ventures. Dow is involved in six joint ventures in Europe. One of the earliest, in Britain, dates from 1954 when Dow linked up with Distillers Co., Ltd., to form Distrene, Ltd. This company was originally set up as a 45-55 ?r partnership, but Dow recently increased its share in the company to 50vr. Distrene's polystyrene plant at Barry, Wales, is the second largest in Britain. Last July, capacity was raised 40% to its current level of 17,500 tons (C&EN, July 29, page 21). Dow makes thorium and rare earth chemicals in Britain in a joint venture with Rio Tinto-Zinc Corp.., Ltd., called Thorium, Ltd. In France, Plastichimie, S.A., makes polystyrene and vinyl chloride-vinyliclene chloride copolymer at Ribecourt, near Paris. In the Netherlands, Staatsmijnen-Dow Fenol, N.V., a joint
venture with Dutch State Mines, will have a phenol plant operating later this year near Rotterdam (C&EN, June 24, page 72). Probably Dow's most ambitious joint venture in Europe is DowUnquinesa, S.A., in Spain. Headquartered at Bilbao, the company, which is one of Spain's leading chemical manufacturers, makes a wide variety of products ranging from basic chemicals such as methanol, formaldehyde, and sulfuric acid to titanium dioxide, metal salts, resins, and adhesives. It operates a 7000 metricton-a-year polystyrene plant at Axpe, on Spain's north coast. At Tarragona, near Barcelona, Dow-Unquinesa plans to have a 20,000-metric-ton high-pressure process polyethylene plant and a 6000-metric-ton low-pressure process polyethylene unit on stream by 1966. As part of Dow's program to increase its rate of expansion of marketing and manufacture world-wide a product and planning group was established in Zurich last month. It will evaluate European investment projects from within Europe. Fears. Fears that Dow production facilities in Europe will supplant the need to import Dow's U.S.-made products and thus adversely affect employment at home are unfounded, Mr. Merszei says. He notes that whenever Dow has established local production facilities, the company's increased stature in the local industrial community has stimulated the sales of Dow's U.S.-made products to that area. As a case in point, Dow, with a polystyrene plant in Italy, and with the help of an Italian-based marketing organization, increased sales in Italy by 40% over last year's figures.
By year's end, West Germany's ethylene capacity will have taken another big jump. In the next two months or so, two new 70,000-metricton plants and one 60,000-metric-ton unit are due to start production, fust last month, a 70,000-metric-ton ethylene expansion was completed. The four projects add 270,000 metric tons a year, a rise of almost 60%, to the country's annual ethylene capacity. About half of the new production is for captive use. • At Raunheim, near Frankfurt, Caltex Deutschland has begun test runs of its new 2 million metric-ton-ayear refinery. The refinery includes a 70,000-metric-ton ethylene plant that will supply nearby Farbwerke Hoechst under a supply contract. • At Wesseling, near Cologne, Union Rheinisclie Braunkohlen Kraftstoffe is readying a 70,000 metrie-ton-a-year ethylene plant at its refinery. Output will go to Knapsack-Griesheim, a Hoechst subsidiary, under an arrangement similar to the Caltex deal. • At Heide, north of Hamburg, Deutsche Ercloel (DEA) is getting set to start its 60,000-metric-ton ethylene plant. Output will be used car>tively by Condea (a joint venture of DEA and Continental Oil) to make Alfol alcohols. • At Dormagen, near Cologne, Erdoelchemie (a 50-50 joint venture of Farbenfabriken Bayer and British Petroleum's West German affiliate, BP Benzin unci Petroleum) has just completed an expansion that increases its ethylene capacity from 45,000 to 115,000 metric tons a year. This is captive capacity. Caltex's refinery, built at a cost of about $50 million, will process Saudi Arabian and Libyan crude fed by a 100-mile extension of the RotterdamCologne pipeline. It is Caltex's first German refinery. It is also the first refinery to be built near Frankfurt and puts a source of petrochemical feedstock virtually on the doorstep of Hoechst, West Germany's second largest chemical producer. Under the terms of the CaltexHoechst supply contract, signed in OCT.
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