The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) announced today that its joint venture membrane chlor-alkali facility with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan (“Mitsui”) successfully initiated full-scale, commercial production.

Dow’s share of the chlorine produced at the Dow-Mitsui Chlor-Alkali Freeport, Texas, facility will serve the growing feedstock needs of its performance- and market-driven businesses. In addition, Dow will market the caustic soda on behalf of the joint venture.

“This world-class facility allows us to capitalize on our modern and efficient membrane chlor-alkali technology and serves as a real-life proof point of how new, competitive energy resources in the U.S. are re-shaping the landscape of U.S. Gulf Coast manufacturing,” said James (Jim) R. Fitterling, Dow executive vice president. “This joint venture bolsters the integration strength of the chlorine value chain at the Freeport site in a capital efficient model that allows Dow to invest in more downstream technology and customer-driven businesses with higher and more consistent earnings.”

The new facility has a name plate capacity of approximately 800 kilotons per annum (KTA) of chlorine. As previously announced in December, 2013, this new world scale facility will replace 800 KTA of older capacity on the site.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2013, Dow had annual sales of more than $57 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 products are manufactured at 201 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

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