Dow signed an agreement with Petronas Chemicals Glycols, a subsidiary of Petronas’ petrochemical arm and Malaysia’s leading chemicals producer, Petronas Chemicals Group Berhad, to collaborate on a carbon project at Petronas’ world-scale ethylene oxide (EO) production facility in support of the Dow-International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Official Carbon Partnership.

Together, Dow and Petronas Chemicals Glycols are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the operations of Petronas Chemicals Glycols EO plant.  

EO is one of the world’s most important chemical raw materials, essential in consumer product manufacturing, including textiles, detergents, insulation and more.

Petronas Chemicals Glycols reduced its operating costs at its Kertih, Terengganu, Malaysia, EO plant when it deployed a higher performance Dow proprietary EO catalyst.

The more effective catalyst technology increased selectivity to EO and process reliability while reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption.

As part of the carbon project, Dow and Petronas Chemicals Glycols will be working together to quantify and obtain third-party verification of the climate benefits following the methodology of the Dow Climate Solutions Framework.

This will help enable a positive climate legacy and balance the operational carbon footprint of the IOC.

“The goal of the Dow-IOC partnership is to advance the adoption of better technologies and processes and demonstrate resource efficiency and more sustainable practices across different industries and markets,” said Dr. Nicoletta Piccolrovazzi, global technology & sustainability director, Dow Olympic & Sports Solutions.

“This first collaboration is a significant milestone for our program within the industrial market and we celebrate Petronas Chemicals Glycols as a trailblazer.  

“We hope this inspires other plants to do the same and work with Dow to advance the economic and environmental efficiency of their production processes. We look forward to seeing the many benefits that will stem from this partnership.”

Elaborating on this agreement, Petronas Chemicals Group Berhad’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Sazali Hamzah said, “Our participation in this carbon project is in line with our commitment towards improvement in operational efficiency while reducing environmental footprint.

“We have seen enhanced results from the change in catalyst, not only in operational excellence due to the higher catalyst selectivity resulting in higher production, but also in cost savings from reduced energy consumption.

“We are determined to continuously minimise our impact to the environment by adopting best practices for energy consumption through leveraging on leading edge technology.”

Petronas Chemicals Glycols’ facility in Malaysia is Dow’s first customer to use its state-of-the-art METER EO-RETRO 2000 Catalyst (MR2000 Catalyst).

The catalyst is part of Dow’s high selectivity family of EO catalysts which improves the performance of the EO production process while reducing energy consumption.  

The MR2000 Catalyst, which is being successfully used in both Dow licensed and non-Dow licensed EO process plants, has a higher selectivity to EO converting more of the raw material ethylene into the desired EO product and therefore reducing the formation of the undesirable byproduct CO2.

In a typical world-scale EO plant, it is estimated that the MR2000 Catalyst enables emission reductions comparable to taking more than 10,000 cars off the road annually.

Faye J. Miller, product director for licensing & catalyst,  Dow Industrial Solutions, said, “Energy intensive industrial processes that create direct carbon emissions offer excellent opportunities for transformative technologies to make an impact on a plant’s sustainability profile.

“Dow’s METEOR RETRO family of EO catalysts enables plants using any EO process technology to realize operating cost reductions while delivering an increase in plant performance, showing that advantaged catalysts can help plants to improve both business and environmental performance.”

This carbon project agreement between Dow and Petronas Chemicals Glycols is among the first of many similar joint efforts that will result from the Collaborative Blueprint for unlocking carbon reductions announced last year by Dow.

The Blueprint underpins the Dow-IOC Official Carbon Partnership, initiated in 2017 to encourage organizations outside the Olympic movement to collaborate on projects that lead to verified climate benefits while catalyzing change across value chains.

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