Dow confirms Freeport, Texas, and Plaquemine, Louisiana, sites as locations for planned expansion of company's performance plastics brands; construction scheduled to begin soon

Mathew Kearney

MIDLAND, Michican , August 27, 2013 (press release) – As part of its focused investment strategy on the U.S. Gulf Coast to integrate advantaged shale gas, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) confirmed today the locations for expanding four of the Company’s leading brand franchises in Texas and Louisiana.

These actions, together with the Company’s collective, high-return investments in this region, are expected to drive strong revenue growth and generate approximately $2.5 billion in EBITDA once fully operational, enabling Dow to address growing customer and value chain demand in attractive markets such as food packaging, transportation and infrastructure, hygiene and medical, and electrical and telecommunications markets globally.

Construction is scheduled to begin soon on these investments, which were initially announced in March 2013, and are aligned with Dow’s industry-leading Performance Plastics franchise.

Strategic growth in NORDEL™ metallocene EPDM, AFFINITY™ brand polymers, and ELITE™ polymers build on a successful legacy of Dow innovation in consumer and industrial products such as flexible food packaging, diapers and nonwoven hygiene products, packaging for medical utensils, automotive and appliances, wire casings for telecommunication cables, roofing membranes and other infrastructure applications.

“Dow Performance Plastics is the world’s leading plastics franchise and with these expansions Dow will be able to further leverage our cost-advantaged position and R&D expertise to deliver leading edge technology that provides a competitive benefit to our customers in many of our most strategic markets,” said Jim Fitterling, Executive Vice President for Dow, “Our history on the U.S. Gulf Coast reaches back more than 70 years, and we’re proud to continue our commitment to this important region with these strategic and accretive investments."

In Freeport, Texas, Dow will expand its High Melt Index (HMI) AFFINITY™ brand polymer franchise. These materials deliver stronger bonding in hot melt packaging adhesives. The Company will also expand its ELITE™ polymer franchise which delivers enhanced durability and flexibility for food packaging, hygiene & medical, and industrial and consumer packaging markets. Both of these brands are powered by Dow's proprietary INSITE™ catalyst technology.

In Plaquemine, Louisiana, Dow will expand its NORDEL™ metallocene EPDM franchise with next generation technology. Also powered by INSITE, NORDEL mEPDM provides the infrastructure, automotive, consumer durables, appliance and electrical and telecommunications markets with highly flexible, heat and chemical resistant polymers that deliver enhanced durability and long service life. Also in Plaquemine, Dow will expand its Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) family of high performance polymers like AGILITY™ that are faster to process, more stable and deliver improved optics for applications in flexible food packaging.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2012, Dow had annual sales of approximately $57 billion and employed approximately 54,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

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