INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, AUGUST 31, 2006
NEW YORK Dow Chemical, which has shuttered 50 plants in the past three years to trim costs, announced plans Thursday to close factories in Italy and Canada and record as much as $650 million in severance expenses and writedowns in the third quarter.
About 750 jobs will be eliminated, a company spokesman, Chris Huntley, said.
Two of seven facilities in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, will be shut, along with plants in Sarnia, Ontario, and Porto Marghera, Italy, to save $160 million a year, the company, based in Midland, Michigan, said.
The Sarnia plant, once Dow’s biggest site in Canada, will close completely by the end of 2008. Output from 27-year- old factories in Fort Saskatchewan will stop in October.
The company said in July that 2006 earnings might slide because of high energy costs.
Dow is “continually looking for ways to enhance our efficiency and our cost- effectiveness, through good times as well as bad, to ensure we remain competitive across every business and in every region,” the chief executive, Andrew Liveris, said.
Full savings should be realized in 2009, Huntley said.
Third-quarter costs, including write- offs on “obsolete technology” and capital-project spending, will be $550 million to $650 million, the company added.
Shares of Dow rose 24 cents to close at $38.14 in New York. Before Thursday, they had dropped 13 percent in the past year.
Huntley said that an undetermined number of the workers could be redeployed elsewhere. He said that most of the layoffs would involve blue-collar workers but said that white-collar employees would be affected as well.
Low density polyethylene-plastic production at the Sarnia plant will shut in the coming weeks and polystyrene- plastic output will later cease this year, Dow said. Production of latex and propylene oxide derivatives will end by the end of 2008, Huntley said.
At Fort Saskatchewan, the company will shut a facility that makes chlorine and caustic soda, as well as an ethylene- dichloride plant, by the end of October. About 100 full-time jobs and 70 contractor positions will be eliminated, Dow said.
The Italian plant, which makes toluene diisocyanate, or TDI, was shut for maintenance in August and will not restart, Dow said. TDI is used to make polyurethanes. (Bloomberg, AP)
NEW YORK Dow Chemical, which has shuttered 50 plants in the past three years to trim costs, announced plans Thursday to close factories in Italy and Canada and record as much as $650 million in severance expenses and writedowns in the third quarter.
About 750 jobs will be eliminated, a company spokesman, Chris Huntley, said.
Two of seven facilities in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, will be shut, along with plants in Sarnia, Ontario, and Porto Marghera, Italy, to save $160 million a year, the company, based in Midland, Michigan, said.
The Sarnia plant, once Dow’s biggest site in Canada, will close completely by the end of 2008. Output from 27-year- old factories in Fort Saskatchewan will stop in October.
The company said in July that 2006 earnings might slide because of high energy costs.
Dow is “continually looking for ways to enhance our efficiency and our cost- effectiveness, through good times as well as bad, to ensure we remain competitive across every business and in every region,” the chief executive, Andrew Liveris, said.
Full savings should be realized in 2009, Huntley said.
Third-quarter costs, including write- offs on “obsolete technology” and capital-project spending, will be $550 million to $650 million, the company added.
Shares of Dow rose 24 cents to close at $38.14 in New York. Before Thursday, they had dropped 13 percent in the past year.
Huntley said that an undetermined number of the workers could be redeployed elsewhere. He said that most of the layoffs would involve blue-collar workers but said that white-collar employees would be affected as well.
Low density polyethylene-plastic production at the Sarnia plant will shut in the coming weeks and polystyrene- plastic output will later cease this year, Dow said. Production of latex and propylene oxide derivatives will end by the end of 2008, Huntley said.
At Fort Saskatchewan, the company will shut a facility that makes chlorine and caustic soda, as well as an ethylene- dichloride plant, by the end of October. About 100 full-time jobs and 70 contractor positions will be eliminated, Dow said.
The Italian plant, which makes toluene diisocyanate, or TDI, was shut for maintenance in August and will not restart, Dow said. TDI is used to make polyurethanes. (Bloomberg, AP)

Share this: