domink

Dow Chemical JV with Saudi Aramco: Could It Be?

also to your point of the equity outlay for these large projects being negligible - thats simply not true - the Ras Tanura venture alone will require $4bn of equity from Dow between now and 2012 - that adds a good $1bn to annual capex numbers - almost doubling the run rate of capex for the period. Layer on the $4bn in equity contributions and $9bn in assumed debt for ras tanura and then despite the $6.7bn net proceeds from the Kuwaitis the balance sheet doesnt look quite as pristine as it does today

Again, while Dow is a great commodity chemical partner - look at your list again and ask yourself if Singapore, Brazil or China really have access to cheap raw materials. The local companies in those countries pay market price for their feedstock and we've been seeing how well the Russians do JV's with the whole TNK-BP thing.

While i do think Dow is cheap at $34, i believe that your article today is not at all objective and is basically propaganda masked as investment analysis