BASF SE, an initialism of its original name , is a German multinational company and the largest chemical producer in the world.[2][3][4] Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
BASF comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries, operating six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites across Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa. BASF has customers in over 190 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries. Despite its size and global presence, BASF has received relatively little public attention since it abandoned the manufacture and sale of BASF-branded consumer electronics products in the 1990s.[5]
The company began as a dye manufacturer in 1865. Fritz Haber worked with Carl Bosch, one of its employees, to invent the Haber-Bosch process by 1912, after which the company grew rapidly. In 1925, the company merged with several other German chemical companies to become the chemicals conglomerate IG Farben. IG Farben would go on to play a major role in the economy of Nazi Germany. It extensively employed forced and slave labor during the Nazi period, and produced the notorious Zyklon B chemical used in the Holocaust. IG Farben was disestablished by the Allies in 1945. BASF was reconstituted from the remnants of IG Farben in 1952. It was part of the German economic miracle, and has since expanded considerably. It has received modern criticism for its poor environmental record.
At the end of 2019, the company employed 117,628 people, with over 54,000 in Germany.[6] In 2019, BASF posted sales of €59.3 billion and income from operations before special items of about €4.5 billion. Between 1990 and 2005, the company invested €5.6 billion in Asia, specifically in sites near Nanjing, Shanghai and Zhanjiang in China and Mangalore in India.[7] BASF is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock Exchange. The company delisted its ADR from the New York Stock Exchange in September 2007.[8] The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.[9][10]
History
BASF is an acronym for. It was founded by Friedrich Engelhorn on 6 April 1865 in Mannheim, in the German-speaking state of Baden. Engelhorn had been responsible for setting up a gasworks and street lighting for the town council in 1861. The gasworks produced tar as a by-product from coal, and Engelhorn used this to extract aniline for the production of dyes. BASF was set up in 1865, to produce other chemicals necessary for dye production, notably soda and acids. The plant, however, was erected on the other side of the Rhine river at Ludwigshafen because the town council of Mannheim was afraid that the air pollution from the chemical plant could bother the inhabitants of the town. In 1866, the dye production processes were also moved to the BASF site.[11]
Aniline dyes (1869)
The discovery in 1857 by William Henry Perkin that aniline could be used to make intense colouring agents had led to the commercial production of synthetic dyes in England from aniline extracted from coal tar. BASF recruited Heinrich Caro, a German chemist with experience of the dyestuff industry in England, to be the first head of research.
Past activity
With the help of then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, BASF's Jürgen Hambrecht signed the Gazprom Nord Stream-Yuzhno-Russkoye deal in 2004 with a 49-51 structure, as opposed to the older 50-50 split of for example BP's TNK-BP project.[44][45] Putin at the time insisted on majority Russian ownership of any joint-venture in Russian territory since that time.[44]
BASF expanded to Podolsk, Russia, in 2012, and to Kazan in 2013.[46]
Notable lawsuit
Dicamba lawsuit
On 27 January 2020, the first-ever lawsuit concerning Dicamba-related products began in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.[47][48] The lawsuit involved a peach farmer who alleged that Dicamba-based herbicides caused significant damage to his crops and trees.[49] It had also been filed in November 2016, when Dicamba was still owned by Monsanto.[50][51][52] On 14 February 2020, the jury involved in the lawsuit ruled against BASF and its co-defendant
Finances
For the fiscal year 2017, BASF reported earnings of €6.1 billion, with an annual revenue of €64.5 billion, an increase of 12% over the previous fiscal cycle.[57] BASF's shares traded at over €69 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at €63.7 billion in November 2018.[58] In October 2019, BASF reported a drop of operating income for July to September amounting to 24 percent, along with a drop in EBIT earnings of €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion).[59] The US–China trade war as well as uncertainties related to Brexit were identified as contributing factors.[59] However, overall third quarter profit beat expectations as the acquisition of Bayer AG's agrochemical and seed business help to offset some of the effects of the trade war.[60]
Business segments and leadership
BASF operates in a variety of markets. As of 2020 its business is organized in the segments of Chemicals, Plastics, Performance Products, Functional Solutions, Agricultural Solutions, and Oil and Gas.
Chemicals
BASF produces a wide range of chemicals such as solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals, and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile, and automotive industries.
Plastics
BASF's plastic products include high-performance materials in thermoplastics, foams, and urethanes.[61]
Engineering Plastics BASF's Engineering Plastics consists of the "4 Ultras" – Ultramid polyamide (PA) nylon-based resins, Ultradur, polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), Ultraform, polyacetal (POM), and Ultrason, polysulfone (PSU) and polyethersulfone (PES).
Styrenics
Investors
75% of the BASF shares are held by institutional investors (BlackRock more than 5%). 36% of the shares are held in Germany, 11% in the UK and 17% in the U.S.
Production
BASF's recent success is characterized by a focus on creating resource efficient product lines after completely abandoning consumer products. This strategy was reflected in production by a re-focus towards integrated production sites. The largest such integrated production site is located in Ludwigshafen employing 33,000 people.
Integrated production sites are characterized by co-location of many individual production lines (producing a specific chemical), which share an interconnected material flow. Piping is used ubiquitously for volume materials. All production lines use common raw material sourcing and feed back waste resources, which can be used elsewhere (e.g. steam of various temperatures, sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide). The economic incentive for this approach is high resource and energy efficiency of the overall process, reduced shipping cost and associated reduced risk of accidents. Due to the high cost of such an integrated production site, it establishes a high entry barrier for competitors trying to enter the market for volume chemicals.
BASF built a new chemical complex in Dahej, Gujarat at a cost of $100 million. This facility has South Asia's first methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) splitter for processing crude MDI. BASF has 8 production facilities in India.[74]
BASF SE has succeeded in developing a semi-crystalline polyamide that allows light to pass through largely unhindered, known as Ultramid.[75]
Environmental record
According to the 2022 "Top 100 Polluters Indexes" published by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's "Political Economy Research Institute" (PERI), BASF was ranked the #2 largest polluter of air and #14 largest polluter of water in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[76]
In 2006, BASF was included in the Climate Leadership Index for their efforts in relation to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.[77]
The BASF Company and Columbia University formed a partnership to further research "environmentally benign and sustainable energy sources". The company has recently reported their emissions in 2006 to be "1.50 million metric tons of waste," which is a decrease from previous years. The amount of waste BASF produces has continued to fall.[78]
While BASF publishes its environmental information in the US and Europe, Greenpeace has expressed deep concerns at BASF's refusal to release environmental information on its operations in China.[79]
See also
Further reading
- Beer, John J. The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (1959).
External links
References
- BASF 10 year summary BASF, retrieved 3 June 2024^
- BASF Headquarters BASF, retrieved 26 February 2016^
- Who Are The World's Largest Chemical Producing Companies? World Atlas, retrieved 25 October 2017