Dow/Union Carbide Merger Completed.

Last month, Union Carbide Corp. of Danbury, Conn., became a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich. Approval by the Federal Trade Commission was the last step, following prior approvals by the European Commission, Canadian Competition Bureau, and other agencies. The merger enhances Dow's polyethylene, polypropylene, and copolymers capacity with plants in Seadrift, Texas; Taft, La.; and Prentiss, Alberta; as well as joint ventures in Montreal, Brazil, Kuwait, and Japan. Also, Union Carbide owns a half interest in a 700-million-lb/yr PP plant due to open in Linden, N.J., in July. (The other half interest is owned by oil refiner Tosco Corp., which is being acquired by Phillips Petroleum Co.) In addition, Dow becomes co-owner with ExxonMobil Chemical of Univation Technologies LLC, which licenses the Unipol gas-phase PE process and Exxpol metallocene technology for LLDPE.

As a condition of regulatory approval, Dow agreed to divest to BP Chemicals Ltd. of the U.K. its metallocene catalyst technology for gasphase PE processes, an area in which Dow and BP formerly had a joint-development effort. BP has agreed to license to Univation the rights to practice and sublicense all the divested Dow technologies.