Dow Moving North Carolina Plant to Midland

The Dow Chemical Co. is moving a silicones, sealants and adhesives plant from Greensboro, North Carolina, to its Michigan Operations manufacturing site in Midland.

The new facility will help "foster the integration of Dow and Dow Corning assets, materials and talent across the collective site, due to its location and reliance on heritage Dow Corning assets and materials," a company news release announcing the plans states.

"Additional Greensboro manufacturing assets will be integrated throughout the collective Michigan Operations site, further expanding infrastructure and production."

On June 1 last year, Dow assumed 100 percent ownership of Dow Corning's silicones business through an ownership restructuring transaction of Dow Corning Corp. Dow is now integrating silicone production facilities into its operations all over the world, the release states.  

"These new plants could have been moved to multiple other locations in North America. Leaders chose Midland because of our talented workforce, an outstanding safety culture, proximity to other processes related to silicone development and competitive incentives from the state of Michigan," Rich Wells, site director, Michigan Operations, and vice president of operations, Canada and US North, said in a statement. 

"We are pleased to host the facility here and grateful to our Midland community and the state for its support and willingness to work collaboratively to enable growth. The location of the assets will help further unify the site under Dow's One Site, One Future plan for Michigan Operations."

Dow officials also are pursuing plans to consolidate the company's Michigan Operations site in Midland and Dow Corning chemical manufacturing facilities. To do that, Dow recently made a request to the city of Midland to close South Saginaw Road between Mark Putnam and Salzburg roads and to reroute non-Dow traffic to Waldo Avenue and Bay City Road.

Dow officials also recently announced the company is seeking to fill 140 manufacturing jobs at its Michigan Operations. It has 80 chemical process operator and 60 logistics technician positions open. Company officials say they're seeking talent in the Great Lakes Bay Region to fill these full-time positions, which offer benefits including medical, dental, 401(k) and vacation pay. Learn more at dow.com/careers.

"The additional $400 million we plan to invest in Michigan Operations to help transform the site, along with investing $100 million in the new Dow Innovation Center, will create jobs and strengthen Dow's footprint in the region," Wells' statement continued.

"All Michigan Operations employees have been working hard to make this happen and we are excited to see the capital investments, construction projects and movement of more manufacturing into Michigan."

Manufacturing start-up for the new silicones, sealants and adhesives plant in Midland is expected to begin in the third quarter 2017, the release states. 

Dow has more than 7,000 product families, which are manufactured at 189 sites in 34 countries. In 2016, Dow had annual sales of $48 billion and employed approximately 56,000 people worldwide.