The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) today announced its new world-scale propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH) located at the Company’s 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 U.S. operations with cost-advantaged feedstocks from increasing supplies of U.S. 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 U.S. Gulf Coast to fruition,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s chairman and chief executive officer. “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 KTA, making it the largest on demand propylene facility of its kind, and the largest and most advanced Honeywell UOP Oleflex™ unit ever built.

Dow 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 U.S. 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. “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.”

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, 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 180 countries and in high-growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2014, Dow had annual sales of more than $58 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 201 sites in 35 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.

Note: The forward-looking statements contained in this document involve risks and uncertainties that may affect the Company’s operations, markets, products, services, prices and other factors as discussed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, economic, competitive, legal, governmental and technological factors. Accordingly, there is no assurance that the Company’s expectations will be realized. The Company assumes no obligation to provide revisions to any forward-looking statements should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws.

®TM Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an affiliated company of Dow