Dow Inc. board approves final investment decision for Path2Zero project

Dow Inc. announced that its board of directors has declared Final Investment Decision on the company’s Fort Saskatchewan Path2Zero investment to build the world’s first net-zeroi Scope 1 and 2 emissions integrated ethylene cracker and derivatives facility in Alberta, Canada. The $6.5B project, excluding governmental incentives and subsidies, includes building a new ethylene cracker and increasing polyethylene capacity by 2 million MTA as well as retrofitting the site’s existing cracker to net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions. The investment is expected to deliver $1B of EBITDA growth per year at full run rates over the economic cycle while decarbonizing 20% of Dow‘s global ethylene capacity. This new capacity will enable Dow to capture growing customer demand in high-value markets, such as packaging, infrastructure and hygiene, among others, with potential additional value captured from commercializing low and zero-emissions products. The project builds on Dow’s expertise in successfully implementing large projects, such as its TX-9 cracker in Freeport, Texas, which has delivered more than 15% return on invested capital since its 2017 start-up through best-in-class capital intensity, conversion cost, and low emissions intensity. The board’s approval enables the Company to begin construction in 2024. Capacity additions are expected to come online in phases, with the first phase starting up in 2027, adding approximately 1,285 KTAiv of ethylene and polyethylene capacity, and the second phase starting up in 2029, adding an additional approximately 600 KTA of capacity. To achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions, the Fort Saskatchewan Path2Zero project will deploy Linde’s air separation and autothermal reformer technology to convert the site’s cracker off-gas to hydrogen, which will be used as a clean fuel to supply the site’s furnaces. In addition, carbon dioxide emissions will be captured and stored, reducing existing emissions by approximately 1M MTA of CO2e while abating all emissions from the addition of the site’s new capacity.