BASF Pushes Harder on Shale Gas as Asian Investors Rethink

BASF is stepping up its pressure on Germany to soften its hesitant stance on shale gas exploitation. In presenting Q2 results in July, CEO Kurt Bock said he hoped the new government elected on Sept. 22 would take a bolder approach.

In a late August newspaper interview the German chemical giant's managing board member Margaret Suckale said the group has knowledge that due to high energy prices customers are turning their backs on the country and relocating planned investment to Asia or the U.S.

Even if hydraulic fracturing is controversial, it at least lowers the energy prices, Suckale said, while noting that gas price in the U.S. are only a quarter of those in Germany.

Potential petrochemical investors in Asia are also looking with envy to the U.S. shale gas boom. At least one has announced plans to withdraw from a mammoth project in Malaysia, saying that naphtha cracking has become comparatively uneconomical. Following conclusion of a feasibility study, Taiwan's Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Company said it would not build a cracker in Pengerang, Johor province, planned as part of a refinery and downstream complex.

Also because of the perceived new feedstock economics, Malaysian state-owned energy and petrochemicals group Petronas may reconsider parts of its RAPID refinery project at Kohor. Reports say a decision is to be made by March 2014. Earlier this year, BASF stepped back from plans for a 60:40 specialty chemicals joint venture within the Petronas RAPID project, saying the two sides had been unable to agree on terms and conditions.