Dow TDI production to return to normal soon

MIDLAND, Mich. (March 10)—Dow Chemical Co. expects its toluene diisocyanate production will return to normal soon. This follows a number of unplanned outages in the final quarter of 2002, including a fire at its Porto Marghera, Italy, facility. The late November fire was minor and no one was injured, but the 120,000 ton-per-year plant was shut down to allow a full investigation into the incident, a Dow spokesman said. "They have been going through a very detailed process of getting the plant ready for restart," he said. "The facility is now going through the process of restarting to make sure it operates without any hiccups—and very safely of course." Meanwhile, Dow's TDI customers in the U.S. are no longer under order control and do have supply, the spokesman said. TDI went on allocation in October after planned outages of chlorine feedstock left Dow's 100,000 ton-per-year plant in Freeport, Texas, running at about two-thirds capacity. The Freeport facility had earlier been shut for three weeks following an equipment failure in late August.