Global plan gives Dow $1bn sales of polypropylene --and Elf/BP raise the stakes

As predicted in High Performance Plastics, February 1996, Dow has leapt into the global polypropylene business - the last big plastics sector in which it was not present. Also, a European runner, the Elf Atochem/BP combine Appryl, has raised the PP stakes with a 100m investment in a 300 000 tonnes/ year plant at the BP site at Grangemouth, UK - one of the largest in the world.

Dow has unveiled a $500 million investment programme to add five new PP plants to the one under construction at Schkopau, Germany, and the route is an agreement with Montell the world's largest PP pro