Dow PU exec cautions against overcapacity

SHENZHEN, China (April 30)—Suppliers of polyurethane raw materials "have to find legal ways to build capacity together," according to David Fischer, global vice president for the polyurethanes business unit of Dow Chemical Co., in order to ensure a more stable future for the industry. Building world-scale plants involves "huge amounts of capital and technology, and the returns are not there now," Fischer said at the recent Utech Asia/PU China 2002 Conference in Shenzhen. "We have seen the pattern repeating, in 1982-84 and again in 1989-92," he explained, referring to periods when several world-scale plants came on stream at around the same time, leading to overcapacity and downward pressure on prices for several years following the expansions.