Mr. Ashish Arora, Commercial Director (India & Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand), Dow Electrical & Telecommunications

The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) is a 114 year old Fortune 500 company having a diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agro sciences and plastics businesses that deliver a broad range of technology-based products and solutions in approximately 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2010, Dow had annual sales of $53.7 billion and employed approximately 50,000 people worldwide. Dow is the “Official Chemistry Company” and Worldwide Partner of the Olympic Games from 2012 to 2020.

With more than 60 years of industry experience, Dow Electrical & Telecommunications (DE&T) is a Market-Facing business within Dow’s Performance Plastics division providing high quality innovative products, services, solutions and knowledge and expertise that set standards for reliability and longevity. DE&T has manufacturing assets in USA, Europe and Japan.

In India, Dow has four manufacturing sites, R&D centre, Engineering Centre, Business Process Service Centre & employs more than 900 people.

During Wire Southeast Asia 2011, Bangkok we had an interaction with Mr. Ashish Arora, Commercial Director (India & Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand), Dow Electrical & Telecommunications who told us about the Dow’s product offerings for wire & cable industry, new product developments, their R&D activities, strategy at Dow and his views on Indian wire & cable industry.

Solutions for power cable industry

We have a broad portfolio of high-quality, high performance XLPE insulation which forms the heart of a cable, semi conductive shields, jacketing & specialty application materials.

We have recently changed our business name from Dow Wire and Cable to Dow Electrical and Telecommunications with the ambition to grow and diversify our portfolio in addition to cable compounds and be a solution provider in the electrical and telecommunication space. We have access to various technologies and knowledge of material chemistry at Dow which is unparalleled in the industry that helps us in this mission.

Approach towards R&D activities

Dow is committed to innovation and invests around USD 1.6 billion annually on R&D. In the Electrical and Telecommunications business, we strive hard to understand the unmet needs of the end-users and customers and channel our R&D budget to develop high performance solutions that are valued by the market.

Some of the recent developments for DE&T include Dow Endurance HFDC 4202 which is an enhanced tree retardant XLPE insulation which offers advanced wet-electrical ageing performance critical to underground cables, with improved system reliability, processability and cable design optimization. We have also developed vegetable oil based transformer oils under the brand Biotemp that provide fire safety and are biodegradable. Another example is Dow Ecolibrium range of bio-plasticizers for PVC wires applications than can replace the toxic phthalates and reduce greenhouse gas consumption by about 40 percent.

Views on the Indian power cable industry

The installed power generation capacity is currently about 175,000 MW and based on industry estimates, we will need 800,000 MW by 2030 to support economic growth. Also the per capita consumption of electricity is around 733kWh vs global average of about 2500kWh – hence the long term demand outlook is very positive for the power cables which are needed for distribution and transmission of power.

The boom in the power cable demand has attracted investments in cable production capacity at an estimated CAGR of 28% for last 4 years. As of now, there is huge overcapacity in the medium voltage cable segments. There shall be about 34 CV lines and 26 moisture cure lines for MV/HV cable production by year end and we estimate that the industry capacity utilization for the CV line is just about 50-60% at present.

Views on quality standards

A high quality cable is a result of using quality materials, equipment, and manufacturing practices. The cables have to meet the IS 7098 specification which is fairly basic. We have a lot to learn from the performance specifications that govern cable production in the developed regions such as Europe or US which significantly improve the life and the reliability of the cable.

For example, it is rather unique to India vs rest of the world that more than 50% of medium voltage cable production in India is through moisture cure route. In developed nations, medium voltage cable is almost exclusively produced on CV lines.

One of the key drawbacks about our system is that utilities do not have an efficient system that tracks and maintains records and root cause investigation of failure of cables. Also most utilities do not need a guarantee of more than 18 months cable life.

Many of the leading global cable producers have or are in the process of establishing a footprint in India and this could help improve quality standards.

One of our key priorities is to share our knowledge and expertise on quality standards with the end-users and specification bodies.

Dow’s strategy for wire and cable division in India

Our strategy is based on quality, innovation and differentiation to create value for our customers. Our primary goal is to promote the benefits of quality and reliability to cable buyers and encourage them to make purchase decisions based on lower system costs over lifetime rather than merely being focused on the initial cost. We have recently launched a program called “Dow Inside” where we collaborate closely with our customers to set new quality standards that benefits cable manufacturers and utilities alike.

India is amongst the key emerging economies worldwide and is a strategic market for us. We are continuously evaluating ways to enhance our presence in India. Dow has recently announced a USD 20 billion JV with Aramco in Saudi Arabia to build the world’s largest integrated chemical complex which is expected to come on stream by late 2015 which demonstrates the commitment to serve customers and helps us capture growth. This is a very promising and exciting development for us.