The origin of the Moon is usually explained by a Mars-sized body striking the Earth, making a debris ring that eventually collected into a single natural satellite, the Moon, but there are a number of variations on this giant-impact hypothesis, as well as alternative explanations, and research continues into how the Moon came to be formed. Other proposed scenarios include captured body, fission, formed together (condensation theory, synestia), planetesimal collisions (formed from asteroid-like bodies), and collision theories.
The standard giant-impact hypothesis suggests that a Mars-sized body, called Theia, impacted the proto-Earth, creating a large debris ring around Earth, which then accreted to form the Moon. This collision also resulted in the 23.5° tilted axis of the Earth, thus causing the seasons. The Moon's oxygen isotopic ratios seem to be essentially identical to Earth's. Oxygen isotopic ratios, which may be measured very precisely, yield a unique and distinct signature for each Solar System body. If Theia had been a separate protoplanet, it probably would have had a different oxygen isotopic signature than proto-Earth, as would the ejected mixed material. Also, the Moon's titanium isotope ratio (50Ti/47Ti)
appears so close to the Earth's (within 4 parts per million) that
little if any of the colliding body's mass could likely have been part
of the Moon.
"One of the challenges to the longstanding theory of the collision,
is that a Mars-sized impacting body, whose composition likely would have
differed substantially from that of Earth, likely would have left Earth
and the moon with different chemical compositions, which they are not."
Some theories have been stated that presume the proto-Earth had no
large moons early in the formation of the Solar System, 4.425 billion
years ago, Earth being basically rock and lava. Theia, an early protoplanet
the size of Mars, hit Earth in such a way that it ejected a
considerable amount of material away from Earth. Some proportion of
these ejecta escaped into space, but the rest consolidated into a single spherical body in orbit about Earth, creating the Moon.
The hypothesis requires a collision between a proto-Earth about
90% of the diameter of present Earth, and another body the diameter of Mars (half of the terrestrial diameter and a tenth of its mass). The latter has sometimes been referred to as Theia, the name of the mother of Selene, the Moon goddess in Greek mythology. This size ratio is needed in order for the resulting system to have sufficient angular momentum
to match the current orbital configuration. Such an impact would have
put enough material into orbit around Earth to have eventually
accumulated to form the Moon.
Computer simulations
show a need for a glancing blow, which causes a portion of the collider
to form a long arm of material that then shears off. The asymmetrical
shape of the Earth following the collision then causes this material to
settle into an orbit around the main mass. The energy involved in this
collision is impressive: possibly trillions of tonnes of material would
have been vaporized and melted. In parts of the Earth, the temperature
would have risen to 10,000 °C (18,000 °F).
The Moon's relatively small iron core (compared to other rocky planets and moons in the Solar System) is explained by Theia's core mostly merging into that of Earth. The lack of volatiles
in the lunar samples is also explained in part by the energy of the
collision. The energy liberated during the reaccretion of material in
orbit around Earth would have been sufficient to melt a large portion of
the Moon, leading to the generation of a magma ocean.
The newly formed Moon orbited at about one-tenth the distance that it does today, and spiraled outward because of tidal friction
transferring angular momentum from the rotations of both bodies to the
Moon's orbital motion. Along the way, the Moon's rotation became tidally locked
to Earth, so that one side of the Moon continually faces toward Earth.
Also, the Moon would have collided with and incorporated any small
preexisting satellites of Earth, which would have shared the Earth's
composition, including isotopic abundances. The geology of the Moon has
since been more independent of the Earth.
A 2012 study on the depletion of zinc isotopes on the Moon found evidence for volatile depletion consistent with the giant-impact origin for Earth and the Moon. In 2013, a study was released that indicated that water in lunar magma is indistinguishable from that in carbonaceous chondrites and nearly the same as that of Earth in isotopic composition.
Derivatives of the hypothesis
Although
the giant-impact hypothesis explains many aspects of the Earth–Moon
system, there are still a few unresolved problems, such as the Moon's
volatile elements not being as depleted as expected from such an energetic impact.
Another issue is lunar and Earth isotope comparisons. In 2001, the most precise measurement yet of the isotopic signatures of Moon rocks was published. Surprisingly, the Apollo
lunar samples carried an isotopic signature identical to Earth rocks,
but different from other Solar System bodies. Because most of the
material that went into orbit to form the Moon was thought to come from
Theia, this observation was unexpected. In 2007, researchers from
Caltech showed that the likelihood of Theia having an identical isotopic
signature as the Earth is very small (less than 1 percent chance).
Published in 2012, an analysis of titanium isotopes in Apollo lunar
samples showed that the Moon has the same composition as Earth, which conflicts with the Moon forming far from Earth's orbit.
Merger of two planets
To
help resolve these problems, a theory published in 2012 posits that two
bodies—each five times the size of Mars—collided, then recollided,
forming a large disc of mixed debris that eventually formed Earth and
the Moon.
Immediate origin of the Moon as a post-impact satellite
The Moon is traditionally thought to have coalesced from the debris
ejected by a giant impact onto the early Earth. However, such models
struggle to explain the similar isotopic compositions of Earth and lunar
rocks at the same time as the system's angular momentum, and the
details of potential impact scenarios are hotly debated. Above a high
resolution threshold for simulations, a study published in 2022 finds
that giant impacts can immediately place a satellite with similar mass
and iron content to the Moon into orbit far outside Earth's Roche limit.
Even satellites that initially pass within the Roche limit can reliably
and predictably survive, by being partially stripped and then torqued
onto wider, stable orbits. Furthermore, the outer layers of these
directly formed satellites are molten over cooler interiors and are
composed of around 60% proto-Earth material. This could alleviate the
tension between the Moon's Earth-like isotopic composition and the
different signature expected for the impactor. Immediate formation opens
up new options for the Moon's early orbit and evolution, including the
possibility of a highly tilted orbit to explain the lunar inclination,
and offers a simpler, single-stage scenario for the origin of the Moon.
Multiple impacts
In 2004, Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Gorkavyi proposed a novel model titled the multiple large asteroid impacts model,which found support from a notable group of Russian astronomers in 2013 and later, in 2017, by planetary researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
In general terms, the main idea of the model suggests that the Moon was
formed as a result of a violent rain of large asteroids (1–100 km) that
repeatedly hammered the fledgling Earth over millions of years. Such a
series of smaller impacts, which were likely more common in the early
Solar System, could blast enough rocky Earth debris into orbit to form a
protosatellite disk which later forms into a small moonlet. As repeated impacts created more balls of debris, the moonlets could merge over time into one large moon.
Synestia hypothesis
In 2018 researchers at Harvard and the UC Davis developed computer models demonstrating that one possible outcome of a planetary collision is that it creates a synestia, a mass of vaporized rock and metal which forms a biconcave disc
extending beyond the lunar orbit. The synestia will eventually shrink
and cool to accrete the satellite and reform the impacted planet.
This hypothesis states that the Moon was captured by the Earth. This model was popular until the 1980s, and some points in its favor are the Moon's size, orbit, and tidal locking.
One problem is understanding the capture mechanism.
A close encounter of two planetary bodies typically results in either
collision or altered trajectories. For this hypothesis to work, there
might have been a large atmosphere around the primitive Earth, which would slow the movement of the Moon by aerobraking before it could escape. That hypothesis may also explain the irregular satellite orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. However, this hypothesis does not adequately explain the essentially identical oxygenisotope ratios of the two bodies.
Earth and Moon to scale, 500 km per pixel
Fission
This is the now discredited hypothesis that an ancient, rapidly spinning Earth expelled a piece of its mass. This was proposed by George Darwin (son of the famous biologist Charles Darwin) in 1879[23] and retained some popularity until Apollo. The Austrian geologist Otto Ampferer in 1925 also suggested the emerging of the Moon as cause for continental drift.
It was proposed that the Pacific Ocean represented the scar of this event.
Today it is known that the oceanic crust that makes up this ocean basin
is relatively young, about 200 million years old or less, whereas the
Moon is much older. The Moon does not consist of oceanic crust but of
mantle material, which originated inside the proto-Earth in the
Precambrian.
Thorium concentrations on the Moon, as mapped by Lunar Prospector
Accretion
The hypothesis of accretion suggests that the Earth and the Moon formed together as a double system from the primordial accretion disk of the Solar System or even a black hole.
The problem with this hypothesis is that it does not explain the angular
momentum of the Earth-Moon system or why the Moon has a relatively
small iron core compared to the Earth (25% of its radius compared to 50%
for the Earth).
Nuclear explosion
Dutch
scientists Rob de Meijer and Wim van Westrenen suggested in 2010 that
the Moon may have formed from a nuclear explosion caused by the
centrifugal force of an earlier, spinning proto-Earth. The centrifugal
force would have concentrated heavy elements such as thorium and uranium on the equatorial plane and at the boundary between the Earth's outer core and mantle.
If the concentrations of these radioactive elements were high enough,
this could have led to a nuclear chain reaction that became
supercritical, causing a nuclear explosion ejecting the Moon into orbit. This natural nuclear fission reactor has been observed on Earth at a much smaller scale.
Additional theories and studies
2011
In 2011, it
was theorized that a second moon existed 4.5 billion years ago, and
later had an impact with the Moon, as a part of the accretion process in
the formation of the Moon.
2013
One hypothesis, presented only as a possibility, was that the Earth captured the Moon from Venus.
A team of researchers of the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
(LRO) spacecraft concluded that the Moon's subsurface may be richer in
metals, like iron and titanium, more than scientists had believed.
In July 2020 scientists report that the Moon formed 4.425 ±0.025
bya, about 85 million years later than thought, and that it hosted an ocean of magma for substantially longer than previously thought (for ~200 million years).
With a presence in about 160 countries, it employs about 37,800 people worldwide. Dow has been called the "chemical companies' chemical company", as its sales are to other industries rather than directly to end-use consumers. Dow is a member of the American Chemistry Council.
In 2015, Dow and fellow chemical company DuPont
agreed to a corporate reorganization which involved the merger and
split of Dow and DuPont into three different companies. The plan
commenced in 2017, when Dow and DuPont merged to form DowDuPont, and
finalized in April 2019, as the materials science division was spun off
from DowDuPont and took the name of the Dow Chemical Company.
Dow was founded in 1897 by chemist Herbert Henry Dow, who invented a new method of extracting the bromine that was trapped underground in brine at Midland, Michigan. Dow originally sold only bleach and potassium bromide, achieving a bleach output of 72 tons a day in 1902. Early in the company's history, a group of British
manufacturers tried to drive Dow out of the bleach business by cutting
prices. Dow survived by also cutting its prices and, although losing
about $90,000 in income, began to diversify its product line. In 1905, German bromide
producers began dumping bromides at low cost in the U.S. in an effort
to prevent Dow from expanding its sales of bromides in Europe. Instead
of competing directly for market share with the German producers, Dow
bought the cheap German-made bromides and shipped them back to Europe.
This undercut his German competitors. Even in its early history, Dow set a tradition of rapidly diversifying its product line. Within twenty years, Dow had become a major producer of agricultural chemicals, elemental chlorine, phenol and other dyestuffs, and magnesium metal.
During World War I, Dow Chemical supplied many war materials the United States had previously imported from Germany. Dow produced magnesium for incendiary flares, monochlorobenzene and phenol
for explosives, and bromine for medicines and tear gas. By 1918, 90
percent of Dow Chemical production was geared towards the war effort. At this time, Dow created the diamond logo that is still used by the company.
After the war, Dow continued research in magnesium, and developed
refined automobile pistons that produced more speed and better fuel
efficiency. The Dowmetal pistons were used heavily in racing vehicles,
and the 1921 winner of the Indianapolis 500 used the Dowmetal pistons in his vehicle.
In the 1930s, Dow began producing plastic resins, which would
grow to become one of the corporation's major businesses. Its first
plastic products were ethylcellulose, made in 1935, and polystyrene, made in 1937.
Diversification and expansion
From 1940 to 1941, Dow built its first plant in Freeport, Texas to produce magnesium extracted from seawater rather than underground brine. The Freeport plant is Dow's largest site – and the largest integrated chemical manufacturing site in the country. The site grew quickly – with power, chlorine, caustic soda and ethylene also soon in production.
Growth of this business made Dow a strategic business during World War
II, as magnesium became important to manufacture lightweight parts for aircraft. Based on 2002–2003 data, the Freeport plants produced 27 billion lbs of product – or 21% of Dow's global production. In 1942, Dow began its foreign expansion with the formation of Dow Chemical of Canada in Sarnia, Ontario, to produce styrene for use in styrene-butadienesynthetic rubber. Also during the war, Dow and Corning began their joint venture, Dow Corning, to produce silicones for military and, later, civilian use.
The "Ethyl-Dow Chemical Co." plant at "Kure's Beach" NC, the only plant on the East Coast producing bromine from seawater, was attacked by a German U-boat in 1942.
In the post-war era, Dow began expanding outside of North America, founding its first overseas subsidiary in Japan
in 1952, and in several other nations soon thereafter. Based largely on
its growing plastics business, Dow opened a consumer products division
beginning with Saran wrap in 1953. Based on its growing chemicals and plastics businesses, Dow's sales exceeded $1 billion in 1964, $2 billion in 1971.
Contamination from fires and radioactive waste
leakage plagued the facility under Dow's management. In 1957 a fire
burned plutonium dust in the facility and sent radioactive particles
into the atmosphere.
The Department of Energy transferred management of the facility to Rockwell International in 1975.
In 1990, nearby residents filed a class action lawsuit against Dow and
Rockwell for environmental contamination of the area; the case was
settled in 2017 for $375 million.
According to the Appellate Court, the owners of the 12,000 properties
in the class-action area had not proved that their properties were
damaged or they had suffered bodily injury.
Vietnam War: napalm and Agent Orange
U.S. Army helicopter spraying Agent Orange over agricultural land during the Vietnam War
The United States military used napalm bombs during the Vietnam War
until 1973. Dow was one of several manufacturers who began producing
the napalm B compound under government contract from 1965. After
experiencing protests and negative publicity, the other suppliers
discontinued manufacturing the product, leaving Dow as the sole
provider. The company said that it carefully considered its position,
and decided, as a matter of principle, "its first obligation was to the
government". Despite a boycott
of its products by anti-war groups and harassment of recruiters on some
college campuses, Dow continued to manufacture napalm B until 1969.
Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant containing dioxin, was also manufactured by Dow in New Plymouth, New Zealand, and Midland, Michigan, in the United States for use by the British military during the Malayan Emergency
and the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. In 2005, a lawsuit was
filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against Dow and Monsanto Co., which also supplied Agent Orange to the military. The lawsuit was dismissed. In 2012, Monsanto
agreed to a $93 million settlement as a result of a case pursued by
ex-Monsanto employees and citizens in the city of Nitro, WV. In 1949, a
chemical plant in Nitro experienced an explosion that damaged a tank
containing 2,4,5-T,
one of the composites that is used in the production of Agent Orange.
The settlement of the case included $9 million for the cleanup of
affected homes in the area, and $84 million to cover the medical
monitoring and treatment of people affected by the explosion, as well as
legal costs for the claimants. No care has been given for the in state
damage done by the Headquarters in Midland, Michigan, and they refuse to
give the evidence to the community.
A major manufacturer of silicone breast implants, Dow Corning (Dow Chemical's Joint Venture with Corning Inc.)
was sued for personal damages caused by ruptured implants. On 6 October
2005, all such cases pending in the District Court against the company
were dismissed. A number of large, independent reviews of the scientific
literature, including the Institute of Medicine in the United States, have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.
The Bhopal disaster occurred at a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide India Ltd., a subsidiary of Union Carbide,
in 1984. A gas cloud containing methyl isocyanate and other chemicals
spread to the neighborhoods near the plant where more than half a
million people lived. The government of Madhya Pradesh
confirmed 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. The leak caused
558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and
approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Union Carbide was sued by the Government of India
and agreed to an out-of-court settlement of US$470 million in 1989.
Dow Chemical acquired Union Carbide in 2001. Activists want Dow Chemical
to clean up the site which is now controlled by the state of Madhya Pradesh.
DBCP
Until the late 1970s, Dow produced DBCP (1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane), a soil fumigant, and nematicide,
sold under the names the Nemagon and Fumazone. Plantation workers who
alleged that they became sterile or were stricken with other maladies
subsequently sued both Dow and Dole Foods
in Latin American courts. The cases were marred by extensive fraud,
including the falsification of test results and the recruitment of
plaintiffs who had never worked at Dole plantations.
While Nicaraguan courts awarded the plaintiffs over $600 million in
damages, they have been unable to collect any payment from the
companies. A group of plaintiffs then sued in the United States, and, on
5 November 2007, a Los Angeles jury awarded them $3.2 million. Dole and
Dow vowed to appeal the decision.
On 23 April 2009 a Los Angeles judge threw out two cases against Dole
and Dow due to fraud and extortion by lawyers in Nicaragua recruiting
fraudulent plaintiffs to make claims against the company. The ruling casts doubt on $2 billion in judgments in similar lawsuits.
Tax evasion
In
February 2013 a federal court rejected two tax shelter transactions
entered into by Dow that created approximately $1 billion in tax
deductions between 1993 and 2003. The court wrote that the transactions
were "schemes that were designed to exploit perceived weaknesses in the
tax code and not designed for legitimate business reasons". The schemes
were created by Goldman Sachs and the law firm of King & Spalding, and involved creating a partnership that Dow operated out of its European headquarters in Switzerland.
Dow stated that it had paid all tax assessments with interest. The case
was against the Internal Revenue Service seeking a refund of the taxes
paid. The case was appealed to the 5th Circuit court, where Dow's claims were again rejected. Dow has petitioned for an en banc hearing by the 5th Circuit, arguing that the decision was contrary to established case law.
Price fixing
Dow Chemical was implicated in a price-fixing scheme that inflated the cost of polyurethane
for customers. The U.S. Justice Department closed an investigation in
2007, but a class-action lawsuit won at a jury trial in 2013. Dow
settled the suit in 2016 for $835 million.
Recent mergers, acquisitions and reorganization
1990s – transition from geographic alignment to global business units
In the early 1990s, Dow embarked on a major structural reorganization.
The former reporting hierarchy was geographically based, with the
regional president reporting directly to the overall company president
and CEO. The new organization combines the same businesses from
different sites, irrespective of which region they belong (i.e. the vice
president for Polystyrene is now in charge of these plants all over the
world).
Union Carbide merger
At the beginning of August 1999, Dow agreed to purchase Union Carbide Corp. (UCC) for $9.3 billion in stock. At the time, the combined company was the second largest chemical company, behind DuPont. This led to protests from some stockholders, who feared that Dow did not disclose potential liabilities related to the Bhopal disaster.
William S. Stavropoulos served as president and chief executive officer of Dow from 1995 to 2000, then again from 2002 to 2004.
He relinquished his board seat on 1 April 2006, having been a director
since 1990 and chairman since 2000. During his first tenure, he led the
purchase of UCC, which proved controversial, as it was blamed for poor
results under his successor as chief executive officer, Mike Parker. Parker was dismissed and Stavropoulos returned from retirement to lead Dow.
2006–2008 restructuring
On 31 August 2006, Dow announced that it planned to close facilities at five locations:
Sarnia, Ontario was Dow's first manufacturing site in Canada, located in the Chemical Valley area alongside other petrochemical companies. In 1942, the Canadian government invited Dow to build a plant there to produce styrene (an essential raw material used to make synthetic rubber
for World War II). Dow then built a polystyrene plant in 1947. In
August 1985, the site accidentally discharged 11,000 litres of
perchloroethylene (a carcinogenic dry cleaning chemical) into the St. Clair River, which gained infamy in the media as "The Blob", and Dow Canada was charged by the Ministry of the Environment.
Up to the early 1990s, Dow Canada's headquarters was located at the
Modeland Centre, and a new three-story complex called the River Centre
was opened up on the Sarnia site in 1993 to house Research and
Development.
Since then, several plants (Dow terminology for a production unit) on
the site have been dismantled, particularly the Basic Chemicals
including Chlor Alkali unit whose closure was announced in 1991 and
carried out in 1994 which affected nearly half of the site's employees.
The Dow Canada headquarters were moved to Calgary, Alberta in 1996, and the Modeland Centre was sold to Lambton County and the City of Sarnia with Dow leasing some office space. The Dow Fitness Centre was donated to the YMCA
of Sarnia-Lambton in 2003. The Sarnia Site's workforce declined from a
peak of 1600 personnel in the early 1990s to about 400 by 2002. In the late 1990s, land on the site was sold to TransAlta
which built a natural gas power plant that begun operations in 2002 to
supply electricity to the remaining Sarnia site plants and facilities,
so that Dow could close its older less efficient steam plant (originally
coal fired and later burning natural gas).
On 31 August 2006, Dow announced that the entire Sarnia site would
cease operations at the end of 2008. The Sarnia site had been supplied
with ethylene through a pipeline from western Canada but BP
officials warned Dow that shipments from the pipeline had to be
suspended for safety reasons, and the loss of an affordable supply for
the low density polyethylene plant rendered all the other operations at
the site non-competitive.
The Low-Density Polyethylene and Polystyrene units closed in 2006,
followed by the Latex Unit in 2008, and finally the Propylene Oxide
Derivatives Unit in April 2009. Dow afterward focused its efforts on the
environmental remediation of the vacant site, which was sold to
TransAlta. The former site has since been renamed the Bluewater Energy Park, with the River Centre remaining available for lease.
One plant at its site in Barry (South Wales), a triple string STR styrene polymer
production unit. Integral in the company's development of the super
high melt foam specific polymers & Styron A-Tech high gloss, high
impact polymers.
One plant at its site in Porto Marghera (Venice), Italy.
On 2 November 2006, Dow and Izolan,
the leading Russian producer of polyurethane systems, formed the joint
venture Dow-Izolan and built a manufacturing facility in the city of Vladimir. Also in 2006, Dow formed the Business Process Service Center (BPSC).
In December 2007, Dow announced a series of moves to revamp the
company. A 4 December announcement revealed that Dow planned to exit the
automotive sealers business in 2008 or 2009.
Within several weeks, Dow also announced the formation of a joint
venture, later named K-Dow, with Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC), a
subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
In exchange for $9.5 billion, the agreement included Dow selling
50-percent of its interest in five global businesses: polyethylene,
polypropylene and polycarbonate plastics, and ethylenamines and ethanolamines. The agreement was terminated by PIC on 28 December 2008.
Rohm & Haas Co. purchase
On 10 July 2008, Dow agreed to purchase all of the common equity interest of Rohm and Haas Co. for $15.4 billion, which equated to $78 per share. The buyout was financed with equity investments of $3 billion by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and $1 billion by the Kuwait Investment Authority. The purpose of the deal was to move Dow Chemical further into specialty chemicals, which offer higher profit margins than the commodities market and are more difficult to enter for the competition. The purchase was criticized by many on Wall Street
who believed Dow Chemical overpaid (about a 75 percent premium on the
previous day's market capital) to acquire the company; however, the high
bid was needed to ward off competing bids from BASF. The transaction to purchase the outstanding interest of Rohm and Haas was closed on 1 April 2009.
Accelerated implementation
On 8 December 2008, Dow announced that due to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008,
it would accelerate job cuts resulting from its reorganization. The
announced plan included closing 20 facilities, temporarily idling 180
plants, and eliminating 5,000 full-time jobs (about 11 percent of its
work-force) and 6,000 contractor positions.
Strategy interruption
Citing the global recession that began in the latter half of 2008, the Kuwaiti government scuttled the K-Dow partnership on 28 December 2008. The collapse of the deal dealt a blow to Dow CEO Andrew Liveris' vision of restructuring the company to make it less cyclical.
However, on 6 January 2009 Dow Chemical announced they were in talks
with other parties who could be interested in a major joint venture with
the company. Dow also announced they that it would be seeking to recover damages related to the failed joint venture from PIC.
After the K-Dow deal collapsed, some speculated that the company
would not complete the Rohm & Haas transaction, as the cash from the
former transaction was expected to fund the latter.
The deal was expected to be finalized in early 2009 and was to form one
of the nation's largest specialty chemicals firms in the U.S. However, on 26 January 2009 the company informed Rohm and Haas that it
would be unable to complete the transaction by the agreed upon deadline. Dow cited a deteriorated credit market
and the collapse of the K-Dow Petrochemical deal as reasons for failing
to timely close the merger. Around the same time, CEO Andrew Liveris
said a first- time cut to the company's 97- year- old dividend policy
was not "off the table". On 12 February 2009, the company declared a
quarterly dividend of $0.15/share, down from $0.42 the previous quarter.
The cut represented the first time the company had diminished its
investor payout in the dividend's 97-year history.
The transaction to purchase the outstanding interest of Rohm and Haas closed on 1 April 2009. After negotiating the sale of preferred stock with Rohm and Hass' two largest stockholders and extending their one-year bridge loan an additional year, the company purchased Rohm and Haas for $15 billion ($78 a share) on 9 March 2009.
2007 dismissal of senior executives
On
12 April 2007, Dow dismissed two senior executives for "unauthorized
discussions with third parties about the potential sale of the company".
The two figures are executive vice president Romeo Kreinberg, and director and former CFO J. Pedro Reinhard. Dow claims they were secretly in contact with JPMorgan Chase; at the same time, a story surfaced in Britain's Sunday Express regarding a possible leveraged buyout
of Dow. The two executives have since filed lawsuits claiming they were
fired for being a threat to CEO Liveris, and that the allegations were
concocted as a pretext.
However, in June 2008 Dow Chemical and the litigants announced a
settlement in which Kreinberg and Reinhard dropped their lawsuits and
admitted taking part in discussions "which were not authorized by, nor
disclosed to, Dow's board concerning a potential LBO" and acknowledged
that it would have been appropriate to have informed the CEO and board
of the talks.
In
the fourth quarter of 2014, Dow announced new operating segments in
response to its previously announced leadership changes. The company
stated it would give further support to its end-market orientation and
increase its alignment to Dow's key value chains – ethylene and
propylene.
U.S. Gulf Coast investments
Several plants on the Gulf Coast
of the US have been in development since 2013, as part of Dow's
transition away from naphtha. Dow estimates the facilities will employ
about 3000 people, and 5000 people during construction.
The plants will manufacture materials for several of its growing
segments, including hygiene and medical, transportation, electrical and
telecommunications, packaging, consumer durables and sports and leisure.
Dow's new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) facility in Freeport, Texas, was expected to come online in 2015, with a first 750000 tonne per year unit, while other units would become available in the future. An ethylene production facility was expected to start up in the first half of 2017.
Chlorine merger
On 27 March 2015, Dow and Olin Corporation
announced that the boards of directors of both companies unanimously
approved a definitive agreement under which Dow will separate a
significant portion of its chlorine business and merge that new entity
with Olin in a transaction that will create an industry leader, with
revenues approaching $7 billion. Olin, the new partnership, became the largest chlorine producer in the world.
On 11 December 2015, Dow announced that it would merge with DuPont, in an all-stock deal. The combined company, which was known as DowDuPont,
had an estimated value of $130 billion, was equally held by the
shareholders of both companies, and maintained their respective
headquarters in Michigan and Delaware.
Within two years of the merger's closure, DowDuPont was set to split
into three separate public companies, focusing on the agriculture,
chemical, and specialty product industries. Shareholders of each company held 50% of the combined company. In the new entity, Dow Chemical chief executive officer Andrew N. Liveris became executive chairman and DuPont chief executive officer Edward D. Breen became chief executive officer. In January 2017, the merger was pushed back a second time pending regulatory approvals.
In 2019, DowDuPont de-merged, forming Dow Inc.
The spin-off was completed on 1 April 2019, at which time Dow Inc.
became an independent, publicly traded company, and the direct parent
company of The Dow Chemical Company.
Also in 2019 Dow employees won an Adhesives and Sealants Council
Innovation Award for "UV Curable Primer that Enables Hard to Bond INFUSE
Olefin Block Copolymer Midsole Foams in High Performance Footwear".
Focus on higher margin business
Dow Chemical has begun to shed commodity chemical businesses, such as those making the basic ingredients for grocery bags and plastic pipes, because their profit margins only average 5–10%. Dow is, as of 2015, focusing its resources on specialty chemicals that earn profit margins of at least 20%.
Areas along Michigan's Tittabawassee River, which runs within yards of Dow's main plant in Midland, were found to contain elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical dioxin in November 2006. The dioxin was located in sediments two to ten feet below the surface of the river, and, according to The New York Times, "there is no indication that residents or workers in the area are directly exposed to the sites". However, people who often eat fish from the river had slightly elevated levels of dioxin in their blood. In July 2007, Dow reached an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency to remove 50,000 cubic yards (38,000 m3) of sediment from three areas of the riverbed and levees of the river that had been found to be contaminated. In November 2008, Dow Chemical along with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality agreed to establish a Superfund to address dioxin cleanup of the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay.
Sale of herbicide business
In December 2015, Dow Chemicals agreed to sell part of its global herbicide business, which had reported falling sales for nearly a year. A portfolio of weed killers known as dinitroanilines was sold to privately held Gowan Company, a family owned company located in Yuma, Arizona, which markets a variety of pesticides to the agricultural and horticultural industries. The global trademarks for Treflan (pesticide)®, which can be sprayed on field corn, cotton and some fruit and vegetables, were included in the sale, as well as a formulation and packaging facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada. Edge (pesticide)®, Team (pesticide)®, Bonalan (pesticide)® and Sonalan (pesticide)®, intellectual property and labels for herbicides based on the molecules trifluralin, benfluralin and ethalfluralin
were also included in the sale. Annual grasses and small seeded
broadleaf weeds can be controlled with these products in a wide range of
crops including cotton, beans, canola, cereals, crucifers, cucurbits, and vegetables. Dinitroanilines, are also known as "DNA herbicides", and have been commercialised at least since 1970.
2020 evacuation
In May 2020, Dow Chemical and many other areas in Midland County, Michigan were forced to evacuate due to high flooding which was caused by the breach of the Edenville and Sanford dams following two days of heavy rainfall in the area.
Products
Former Dow Chemical Corporate headquarters in Midland, Michigan
The Performance Chemicals (17 percent of sales) segment produces chemicals and materials for water purification, pharmaceuticals, paper coatings, paints and advanced electronics. Major product lines include nitroparaffins, such as nitromethane, used in the pharmaceutical industry and manufactured by Angus Chemical Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co. Important polymers include Dowex ion-exchange resins, acrylic and polystyrene latex, as well as Carbowaxpolyethylene glycols. Specialty chemicals are used as starting materials for production of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Water purification
Dow Water and Process Solutions (DW&PS) is a business unit which manufactures Filmtec reverse osmosis membranes which are used to purify water for human use in the Middle East. The technology was used during the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics. The DW&PS business unit remained with DowDuPont following the April 2019 spin-off.
Basic plastics (26 percent of sales) end up in everything from diaper liners to beverage bottles and oil tanks. Products are based on the three major polyolefins – polystyrene (such as Styron resins), polyethylene and polypropylene.
Basic chemicals
Basic
chemicals (12 percent of sales) are used internally by Dow as raw
materials and are also sold worldwide. Markets include dry cleaning,
paints and coatings, snow and ice control and the food industry. Major
products include ethylene glycol, caustic soda, chlorine, and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM, for making PVC). Ethylene oxide and propylene oxide and the derived alcohols ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are major feedstocks for the manufacture of plastics such as polyurethane and PET.
Hydrocarbons and energy
The Hydrocarbons and Energy operating segment (13 percent of sales) oversees energy management at Dow. Fuels and oil-based raw materials are also procured. Major feedstocks for Dow are provided by this group, including ethylene, propylene, 1,3-butadiene, benzene and styrene.
Hand sanitizer
In March 2020, during the Coronavirus outbreak, Dow expanded its European hand sanitizer production, providing the product free to hospitals.
Finances
For
the fiscal year 2017, Dow Chemicals reported earnings of US$1.5 billion,
with an annual revenue of US$62.5 billion, an increase of 29.8% over
the previous fiscal cycle. Dow Chemicals shares traded at over $67 per
share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$121.1 billion
in September 2018.
In 2003, Dow agreed to pay $2 million, the largest penalty ever in a pesticide case,
to the state of New York for making illegal safety claims related to
its pesticides. The New York Attorney General's Office stated that Dow
AgroSciences had violated a 1994 agreement with the State of New York to
stop advertisements making safety claims about its pesticide products.
Dow stated that it was not admitting to any wrongdoing, and that it was
agreeing to the settlement to avoid a costly court battle.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dow has some responsibility for 96 of the United States' Superfundtoxic waste sites, placing it in 10th place by number of sites. One of these, a former UCC uranium and vanadium processing facility near Uravan, Colorado, is listed as the sole responsibility of Dow.
The rest are shared with numerous other companies. Fifteen sites have
been listed by the EPA as finalized (cleaned up) and 69 are listed as
"construction complete", meaning that all required plans and equipment
for cleanup are in place.
In 2007, the chemical industry trade association – the American
Chemical Council – gave Dow an award of 'Exceptional Merit' in
recognition of longstanding energy efficiency and conservation efforts.
Between 1995 and 2005, Dow reduced energy intensity (BTU per pound
produced) by 22 percent. This is equivalent to saving enough electricity
to power eight million US homes for a year.
The same year, Dow subsidiary, Dow Agrosciences, won a United Nations
Montreal Protocol Innovators Award for its efforts in helping replace
methyl bromide – a compound identified as contributing to the depletion
of the ozone layer. In addition, Dow Agrosciences won an EPA "Best of
the Best" Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named Dow as a 2008 Energy Star Partner of the Year for excellence in energy management and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon footprint
Dow Chemical Company reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 33,100 Kt (+700/+2.2% y-o-y) and plans to reduce emissions 15% by 2030 from a 2019 base year.
Dow's annual Total CO2e Emissions - Location-Based Scope 1 + Scope 2 (in kilotonnes)
Dec 2018
Dec 2019
Dec 2020
36,000
32,400
33,100
Board of directors
The final board of directors of The Dow Chemical Co. were, prior to the closing of the merger with DuPont on 1 September 2017:
