The Dow Chemical Company (Midland, Mich.) announced that it has signed a joint venture agreement with BASF (Florham Park, N.J.) to construct a new propylene oxide manufacturing facility using the recently co-developed hydrogen peroxide route to propylene oxide (HPPO) technology. Construction of the new 300,000 MT plant will begin this year with startup planned in early 2008. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“HPPO is an attractive, lower-cost, and commercially-viable process for producing propylene oxide,” said Earl Shipp, Business Vice President, Dow Oxides and Glycols. “BASF has been a great partner for us since we began co-developing HPPO technology in 2003.”
The joint venture will build and operate the commercial-scale HPPO plant in Antwerp Belgium. A separate joint venture company will own and further develop the HPPO (hydrogen peroxide route to propylene oxide) technology.
The two companies will have equal off-take rights to the PO produced by the Antwerp plant.
Dow considers the development of additional projects in Asia using the HPPO technology a priority and it is currently studying various alternatives and potential locations for future PO investment.
Source: Dow Chemical Co.