Dow Chemical opens world-scale Texas PDH plant

Dow Chemical announced Monday that its new world-scale propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH) located at its Oyster Creek site in Freeport, Texas, has begun commercial operations. 

The start-up of this unit is the most recent milestone in Dow’s comprehensive plan to further integrate its US operations with cost-advantaged feedstocks from increasing supplies of US shale gas and create long-term, competitive advantage for Dow’s performance materials, consumer and infrastructure solutions businesses.

“This milestone solidifies our first-mover advantage by bringing our investments in the US Gulf Coast to fruition,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s chairman and CEO. “This is another important step in executing Dow’s global growth strategy, further increasing our feedstock flexibility by harnessing the value of integration and positioning the company for growth in attractive, fast-growing markets.”

Capacity for the new propylene production facility is 750,000 tpy, making it the largest on-demand propylene facility of its kind, and the largest and most advanced Honeywell UOP Oleflex unit ever built.

Dow noted that it also continues to make significant progress on its world-scale ethylene unit, supporting infrastructure and the derivative investments aligned to Dow’s performance plastics franchise, located at Dow sites across the US Gulf Coast. The completion of the performance plastics derivative investments will be synchronized with the start-up of the new ethylene unit.

“Our investments in ethylene and propylene integration significantly reduce third-party purchases and improve the raw material costs to Dow’s high-value derivatives businesses,” said James R. Fitterling, vice chairman and chief operating officer at Dow. “Our Gulf Coast investments will serve as a solid base for long-term growth while further bolstering our market competitiveness and improving our structural feedstock hedge.”