MIDLAND, MI - The Dow Chemical Co., Midland, MI, announced that the SCG-Dow Group, a joint venture between Dow and SCG, has reached a key milestone for the new propylene oxide (PO) facility in Thailand by ramping the plant up to stable production levels in preparation for the full capacity run scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2011. The world-scale plant, located within the Asia Industrial Estates (AIE) site near Map Ta Phut, Thailand, will have a name plate capacity of 390 kilotons per annum (KTA) of PO via the innovative hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) technology jointly developed by Dow and BASF.

According to Holger Baer, Global Manufacturing and Technology Director, PO/PG, “Within three years, this is the second world-scale plant brought on-line with the innovative Dow-BASF HPPO process. It significantly reduces wastewater and energy consumption compared to existing PO technology, and is planned to be utilized next in the Sadara Chemical Co. project between Dow and Saudi Aramco due to the clear demonstration of the advantages of this process.”

The AIE site also features: a specialty elastomers plant, which announced start-up earlier this year; power utilities and infrastructure; and a new liquids cracker, also jointly owned by SCG and Dow.