About Us

Surrounded by an abundance of natural resources, Dow's Fort Saskatchewan manufacturing facility is the largest petrochemical manufacturing facility in Canada. The 861- hectare site is home to seven world-scale Dow manufacturing plants and one MEGlobal plant that use the natural resources in the area to make basic chemicals and plastics.

More than 2.5 million tonnes of product leave the Fort site each year by rail and truck, with over half of it bound for customers outside of Canada. Western Canada Operation's (WCO) Site Logistics team handles more than approximately 2,250 rail shipments per month or 75 rail cars per day utilizing about 60 kilometers of rail track on-site. They also handle about 580 truck shipments per month or 19 trucks per day. Much of the exported product is sent to Dow's West Coast Distribution Centre in North Vancouver, British Columbia, where it is loaded onto ships bound for Asia and other parts of the world.

Dow is committed to limiting its impact on the environment and has a unique approach right at its plant site. The Dow Wildlife Greenbelt once again met the high recertification standards of the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC), an environmental group based out of Baltimore, Maryland. More than 184 hectares of the Fort’s total site is managed in alignment with the standards set out in the WHC environmental enhancement program. This includes remnant marshes and wetlands, wooded corridors, created wetlands and manicured grounds. Over 16,000 trees and shrubs have been planted in the Greenbelt, and artificial nesting structures for bluebirds and raptor perch poles have also been constructed. The Wildlife Greenbelt is open to the public during summer daylight hours and Dow encourages visitors to use the observation platform and educational materials.

In addition to preserving wildlife and vegetation in the area, Dow is committed to keeping the air clean and safe. Through our active membership in the Fort Air Partnership (FAP), a multi-stakeholder group mandated to manage an eight-station airshed-monitoring network, two air-monitoring stations near Dow's manufacturing site provide the community with real-time data on air emissions and air quality. All data gathered through FAP's regional air monitoring network is available to the public 24-hours a day online at the FAP web site.

Dow Fort Saskatchewan also has a strong socio-economic impact on the community. The site contains a $3 billion investment to date, and in 2005, paid over $6.7 million in property taxes (Dow and MEGlobal). As well, Dow spends over $1.9 billion per year in Alberta on various services, feedstocks, utilities and products needed to run its operations.

Chlor-Alkali
Dow's Chlor-Alkali (CA) plant uses salt, water and electricity to produce four main products — chlorine, caustic soda, hydrogen and hydrochloric acid. All of the chlorine CA produces is used on-site to produce ethylene dichloride and hydrochloric acid. The hydrogen recovered during the plant processes is in turn used on site as fuel.

Caustic soda is a main ingredient in most soaps. It is used in the aluminum industries and by customers to make lotions, detergents and food packaging. Dow supplies caustic soda to the pulp and paper industry, where it is used to process wood pulp, and to the petroleum industry, where it is used to assist in oil extraction.

In 2004, CA completed a project that discontinued the use of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in the plant's production processes, which improved inherent process safety at the facility and the site through the elimination of its worst-case scenario.

Hydrocarbons Products
The Hydrocarbons Products plant (HCP) was completed in 1994 and consists of three plants — a Fractionator plant, an Ethylene plant and a Water Treatment plant. In 1998, the ethylene plant was doubled in capacity. The Fractionator takes natural gas liquids and separates them into component parts — ethane, propane, butane, C₃ plus and C₅ plus, which is similar to gasoline. It is designed to take in 70,000 barrels of natural gas liquids per day and produce 40,000 barrels of ethane per day. The Ethylene plant 'cracks' the ethane produced in the Fractionator to manufacture over 2.8 billion pounds of ethylene per year. The ethylene, which is an important feedstock for Dow, is sent to other plants on site.

Ethylene is a primary building block for many consumer products, including vinyl products, polyethylene plastics, polyester fabric for clothes, ethylene oxide products, including clear pop bottles, and ethylene glycol (antifreeze) for vehicles.

Polyethylene
The Polyethylene plant started up in 1985 and underwent expansions in 1994 and 1998. The latest expansion more than doubled the plant’s production capability.

Polyethylene is used in plastic grocery bags and food packaging. It is made in the form of small pellets about an eighth of an inch in diameter. The pellets are sold to customers who melt them down and convert them into products such as plastic film or parts.

Ethylene Dichloride
Built in 1979, the plant uses chlorine from Dow's CA facility and ethylene from HCP to produce ethylene dichloride (EDC). EDC is used to produce vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) which is the building block for products like vinyl siding, plumbing pipe, garden hoses, auto upholstery and even rain coats.

In 2002, Dow announced the future closure of the VCM portion of the facility, which occurred on March 31, 2006. The decision was based on future investment opportunities, and not a reflection on either the excellent work of Dow employees or the plant's ability to operate safely.

Power and Utilities
The Power and Utilities combined-cycle, cogeneration plant at the Fort Saskatchewan site has the capability to supply 100 per cent of the power required to operate Dow's manufacturing plants. The site has two large Dow-owned natural gas turbines that are similar in design to a 747 jet engine. Additional power is generated by two steam turbines capable of producing 18 megawatts of power each. In November of 1999, Trans Alta Energy and Air Liquide built a third gas turbine/steam turbine unit on site capable of producing 130 megawatts. This plant is operated and fully dispatched by Dow and employs the latest combustion technologies to minimize emissions. The combined gas and steam turbine output allows Dow to generate approximately 300 megawatts of power, more than the total site power requirement of about 270 megawatts. Dow also buys and sells power through the Power Pool of Alberta to balance its needs.

Dow is concerned about the greenhouse gases resulting from power generation, and therefore uses cogeneration and combined-cycle technologies in its power processes. Towards this end, Dow has also installed steam injection technology on one gas turbine to further reduce emissions. Plans are in place for the future installation of emission reduction technology on the second Dow turbine as well.

STYROFOAM™
This plant is the only plant at the Fort that produces consumer end products, including STYROFOAM brand insulation products, Flame Retardant ROOFMATE and STYROFOAM Highway Insulation. STYROFOAM brand insulation is rigid closed-cell polystyrene foam manufactured by a propietary extrusion process. The unique properties of STYROFOAM brand insulation make it ideal for a wide variety of applications. It may be used in roofs, walls, highway construction, and for all types of residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. STYROFOAM insulation was used in the construction of the Dow Centennial Centre, a recreation and cultural facility in Fort Saskatchewan.

The Fort Saskatchewan plant provides all STYROFOAM insulation products to a sales area that covers Western Canada from Vancouver to Thunder Bay, including the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. STYROFOAM insulation is also exported to the Pacific region, in particular Hong Kong and Malaysia.