Dow Announces Coatings Manufacturing Investment in Saudi Arabia

The Dow Chemical Company today announced plans to invest in a new manufacturing facility for its Dow Coating Materials (DCM) business unit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dow Coating Materials is the premier supplier of products and technologies to architectural and industrial coatings manufacturers. The planned facility, which will be located at the Jubail Industrial City, will manufacture a wide range of coating materials for both the Kingdom and export markets worldwide.

“With an unmatched specialty portfolio of advanced materials, we constantly aim at bringing customers differentiation and solving global challenges locally together,” said Jerome Peribere, Executive Vice President of The Dow Chemical Company and President and Chief Executive Officer, Dow Advanced Materials Division (AMD). “By investing in a new coatings facility in Saudi Arabia, we are moving closer to our regional customers, and realizing our regional business objectives in a key growth market for Dow.”

“Our investment in a new world-class coatings facility will support our growth ambitions by bringing the most advanced and sustainable coating materials to the Saudi market and by enabling us to deliver innovation that is tailored to the region’s needs,” said Dr. Ilham Kadri, General Manager, AMD Middle East & Africa. “Additionally, we will look to create new highly-skilled jobs in the Saudi market, and support the Kingdom’s vision to establish sustainable policies and practices in the industry.”

“Dow Coating Materials is known as “The Expert’s Expert”, which basically means our experts collaborate with our customer's experts to develop the most advanced solutions,” said Anton Van Beek, General Manager, DCM Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). “We are committed to helping our customers rethink coatings by working closely with paint and coating formulators worldwide to develop breakthrough technologies that are differentiated. Our new investment in Saudi Arabia will deliver the solutions our regional customers want, without compromising on cost or sustainability profile.”

Dow Coating Materials operates 43 manufacturing plants worldwide and 13 dedicated R&D facilities across all major geographic markets where Dow does business. Through its mission of collaboration, inspiration, innovation and growth, the business provides material products, science, technology, and manufacturing solutions to the architectural and industrial coatings industry worldwide.

The new facility is the latest in a series of investments to be announced by Dow in Saudi Arabia. In July 2011, Dow and Saudi Aramco announced an agreement to form Sadara Chemical Company, a joint venture to build and operate a world-scale, fully integrated chemicals complex in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. Upon completion, the joint venture is projected to be among the world’s largest petrochemical facilities and would represent the largest foreign direct investment into Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical sector. Dow also recently announced plans to invest in a best-in-class manufacturing facility for DOW FILMTEC™ Reverse Osmosis (RO) elements in the Kingdom.