“In light of the war of aggression against Ukraine ordered by the Russian government,” BASF announced has on Apr. 27 that it has decided to wind down all of its remaining business activities in Russia and Belarus at the beginning of July.
Under pressure from economic sanctions imposed on Russian assets by Europe and the US after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wintershall Dea, the German oil and gas producer owned to 67% by BASF said it will write off its €1.1 billion financing of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project and will not pursue any new projects in Russia.
The Antwerp@C project, which aims to halve the Port of Antwerp’s CO2 emissions, has started engineering studies following the completing of a feasibility study last year. The engineering studies will further investigate constructing a central “backbone” throughout the port, along the industrial zones on both the Right and Left Banks of the River Scheldt.
BASF has expanded its feed enzymes capacity at Ludwigshafen, Germany, to meet growing global demand for its Natuphos E, Nutugrain TS and Natupulse TS products. The German group said feed enzymes have become indispensable for improving efficiency and sustainability in animal protein production.
As demand for polyamide (nylon) continues to skyrocket and the market tightens, BASF has become the second major producer to announce a fresh investment in one of the polymer’s starting materials, hexamethylenediamine (HMD).
German chemicals giant BASF plans to launch a corporate share buyback program worth up to €3 billion, beginning this month and stretching over nearly two years, until Dec. 31, 2023 at the latest.
BASF is selling its US-based attapulgite business to Clariant for $60 million. The deal expected to close in summer 2022 following regulatory approval also includes the transfer of a production facility at Quincy in the state of Florida.
Clariant Catalysts is participating in Germany’s TransHyDE project AmmoRef, which aims to develop technologies and catalysts for ammonia cracking to facilitate future hydrogen transport.
Dutch renewables specialist Avantium has finalized plans for what it said will be the world’s first commercial scale production facility for FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid), with a capacity of 5,000 t/y. With the last hurdle to fulfilling all financing conditions successfully taken, production of the precursor of high-end plastic polyethylene furanoate (PEF) is now slated to begin in 2024, a year behind schedule.
World’s largest chemical producer BASF is creating a new company dedicated to renewable energy. The new firm, BASF Renewable Energy, which is to be based at the group’s Ludwigshafen, Germany headquarters, will steer internal projects as well as collaboration with external partners.
Chemical MNCs show strong verbal commitment to China, but the real situation is somewhat underwhelming.
Air Liquide and BASF have received an undisclosed funding award from the European Innovation Fund as part of plans to develop what the EU expects to be the world’s largest cross-border Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) value chain, starting at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium.
BASF is selling its kaolin minerals business to KaMin, a globally active minerals company owned by IMin Partners and headquartered in Macon, Georgia, USA. Part of BASF’s Performance Chemicals division, the activities had sales of around €155 million in 2020 and a workforce of 440 in North America, Europe and Asia.
Swiss specialty chemicals company Sika has agreed to buy MBCC Group, formerly BASF’s construction chemicals business, from an affiliate of private equity company Lone Star Funds for €5.2 billion. Sika described the deal as “highly complementary” and added that it expects the addition of MBCC’s portfolio to push sales above €12.3 billion by 2023.
With the receipt of all approvals, BASF and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) have closed the sale of water treatment company Solenis to Platinum Equity. The transfer to the new private equity investor for an enterprise value of $5.25 billion includes net debt of around $2.5 billion.
Leading global chemical companies and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have announced that they are entering an agreement to formalize the Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies (LCET) initiative into a stand-alone entity by the end of 2023, to share early-stage risks and co-invest in developing and upscaling low-carbon emitting technologies.
BASF and Sanyo Chemical Industries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly develop and produce sustainable polyurethane dispersions (PUDs). The companies said they aim to jointly develop and manufacture innovative products with strong sustainability contribution. Any newly developed technologies and products will have worldwide market access through their global production footprint.
Polish plastics and rubber producer Synthos is building a new butadiene extrusion unit, coupled with associated logistics infrastructure, at Plock, Poland. The new facility due on stream in 2024 will have an ultimate capacity of 120,000 t/y and will feed the company’s production in central and eastern Europe.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is said to be considering regulating the increasingly popular practice of chemical recycling. In a notice published in the Federal Register, the environmental watchdog that turned into the opposite during the Trump administration said it wants companies to provide more information on pyrolysis and gasification, with an eye to regulating these processes under the federal Clean Air Act.
BASF Polska, Polish subsidiary of the Ludwigshafen-based German chemical group, has signed a two-year contract with energy utility PGE Obrót to purchase electricity produced entirely from renewable sources – for the most part wind-based – to power its mobile emissions catalysts plant in Środa Śląska.
German chemical giant BASF and its Chinese joint venture partner Sinopec have unveiled plans to expand several downstream plants at the Nanjing petrochemicals complex they operate under the name BASF-YPC. The expansion will cover propionic acid, propionic aldehyde, ethyleneamines, ethanolamines and purified ethylene oxide.
BASF and Eni have agreed to jointly develop new technology to produce bio-propanol from glycerin, a byproduct from the production of industrial biodiesel, or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME).
LyondellBasell has taken over 100% of PolyPacific Polymers (PPM), a compounder based at Port Klang, Malaysia. The Malaysian production facility, which has capacity to produce 25,000 t/y of reinforced and modified polyolefin compounds, will be rebranded as LyondellBasell. All employees will transfer.
Building on the Green Deal it rolled out at the end of 2019 and the European Climate Law that goes into effect this month, the European Commission on Jul. 14, concretized its long anticipated targets toward putting the EU at the forefront of political blocs dealing with climate change.
With an eye toward the growing electric vehicle market, BASF has announced it will build a battery recycling prototype plant at the site of its cathode active materials (CAM) production facility in Schwarzheide, Germany.
In what it called another “significant milestone” along the route to greener production globally, BASF has agreed to buy renewable electricity for its Zhanjiang integrated site in China from China Resources Power. The purchase transacted through the Guangdong Power Exchange Center was made possible by new government rules established in April, and BASF will be the first company to benefit.
An initial public offering for Wintershall Dea, the oil and gas producer owned by BASF and Letter One – last planned for the second half of 2021 – will not take place this year, the partners announced on Jun. 16, citing an uncertain market.
BASF is forming a majority-owned 51:49 joint venture with Hunan Shanshan Energy to make cathode active materials (CAM) and their precursors (PCAM) in China, the world’s the largest battery materials market. The chemicals are a key component of lithium-ion batteries, which are in strong demand, thanks to the growing market for electric vehicles.
The EU Commission’s ambitious plan for a European Green Deal, launched shortly before the pandemic struck in early 2020, aims to make the continent the world’s first climate-neutral region by 2050. The goals spelled out in January last year call for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% up to 2030, compared with 1990 levels.
BASF has wrapped up the sale of its Kankakee, Illinois production site for an undisclosed sum to an affiliate of US private equity group One Rock Capital Partners. The sale also includes the associated businesses of vegetable-oil-based raw material sterols and natural vitamin E, anionic surfactants and esters produced at the site, which are being rebranded as Kensing.
BASF and major German utility company RWE have signed a letter of intent to create a €4 billion, 2 gigawatt, wind farm at an undisclosed offshore location on the German North Sea coast by 2030. The chemical group, which will own 49% of the project to RWE’s 51%, will take four-fifths of the output, feeding energy mainly to its Ludwigshafen headquarters. The wind park is calculated to satisfy about a quarter of the site’s power needs.
BASF is investing in its enzymes business at the Novartis Kundl/Schaftenau Campus in Austria. The German chemical giant said the agreement with the Swiss group – for which financial details were not disclosed – will enable it to develop a world-scale operation for bacterial enzymes and biotechnology products.
BASF has broken ground for the third phase of its new Innovation Campus Shanghai. Construction work on the expansion, which will add a further research and development building and a new R&D workshop building to the campus, is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 and bring its total investment in the Chinese technology showcase to around €280 million.
BASF, SABIC and Linde have signed a joint agreement to develop and demonstrate solutions for electrically heated steam cracker furnaces and are evaluating the construction of a multi-megawatt demonstration plant at BASF’s Ludwigshafen site in Germany, to start up in 2023.
A coalescing of factors has led to arrested growth across the chemicals sector this year, with the brand value of the top 25 most valuable chemicals brands contracting by 8% on average, according to the latest report by Brand Finance, an independent brand valuation consultancy.
