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- Throughout 2004, we continued our focus on portfolio management, examining every area of the Company and maintaining consistency and discipline in the assessment of our businesses, to ensure that resources are allocated where they will best deliver future value growth.
- We continued to invest in strategic growth. We completed the acquisition of the Celanese acrylates business. We commissioned production plants for a number of new products, including AFFINITY* polyolefin plastomers and DOW XLA* elastic fiber. And we announced plans to create additional capacity for existing Dow products: a second styrene-butadiene latex train in Zhangjiagang, China; the expansion of a plant producing water treatment membranes operated by FilmTec Corporation in Minnesota, U.S.A.; and a new facility for UCAR† Emulsion Systems at our St. Charles Operations in Louisiana, U.S.A.
- Future value growth was a key consideration in the employee assessment and selection process that we applied across every business, function and geography during the organizational restructuring in 2004. Our aim was to ensure that our workforce had not only the skills, the competencies and the commitment we need today, but also the vision, the resolve and the diversity to drive Dow’s success into the future.
- In 2004, we announced three important new initiatives with joint venture partners. We formed MEGlobal and Equipolymers with Petrochemical Industries Company of Kuwait – already our partner on two other joint ventures in the Middle East. And later in the year, we announced a third joint venture, this time with the government of Oman for a petrochemical complex in Sohar, Oman. Joint ventures contributed more than $920 million in earnings in 2004, and continue to provide an excellent business model for Dow and a strong platform for growth.
*VERSIFY, AFFINITY and DOW XLA are trademarks of The Dow Chemical Company.
†UCAR is a trademark of Union Carbide Corporation.
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