BASF will combine its businesses with water solutions and oilfield and mining solutions effective April 1, 2013 The new global business unit will be located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

BASF offers a wide range of products for key processes of industrial and municipal water treatment, products for the drilling and completion of oil wells and mineral processing reagents for the mining industry. All three businesses include parts of the polyacrylamide (PAM) value chain. Significant investments are planned to upgrade the performance of existing production plants, create additional capacity, strengthen R&D efforts and establish a new bio-acrylamide process for further cost optimization.

Measures taken to drive efficiency

As part of its world -wide operational improvement program for its water solutions business, the company expects to reduce its workforce by about 215 positions worldwide. Most of the planned job reductions will occur at the Bradford and Grimsby, UK sites. BASF expects to complete the planned measures at the latest by end of 2015.

The PAM product line and the respective operations will be jointly managed for all three businesses following an integrated PAM strategy covering both, cationic and anionic PAM.

Water solutions to divest industrial water management business

BASF's water solutions business will in future fully concentrate on providing innovative chemical solutions to the water market. To this end the company is planning to divest its service-oriented industrial water management business, located in Lyon, France, to a strategic partner capable to further expand the business and giving the current 61 employees a long-term perspective.