Everything about Basf totally explained
BASF SE ( ) is a
German chemical company and the largest chemical company in the world.
BASF originally stood for
Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (
Baden Aniline and Soda Factory). Today, the four letters are a registered
trademark and the company 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.
The BASF Group comprises more than 160
subsidiaries and
joint ventures and operates more than 150 production sites in
Europe,
Asia,
Australia,
Americas and
Africa. Its headquarters are located in
Ludwigshafen am Rhein (
Rhineland-Palatinate,
Germany). BASF has customers in over 200 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries. Despite its size and global presence BASF receives little public attention as it has abandoned consumer product lines in the 90s.
At the end of 2006, the company employed more than 95,000 people, with over 47,000 in Germany alone. In 2006, BASF posted sales of
€52.6 billion and income from operations before special items of over €6.7 billion. The company is currently expanding its international activities with a particular focus on Asia. Between 1990 and 2005, the company invested €5.6 billion in Asia, for example in sites near
Nanjing and
Shanghai,
China and
Katipalla in
India.
Investors
72% of the BASF shares are held by
institutional investors (
AXA SA more than 5%,
Allianz AG 2.6% and
General Capital Group 2.1%). 45 % of the shares are held in Germany, 17.3 % in the UK and 13.5 % in the U.S.
Business segments
BASF operates in a variety of markets. Its business is organized in the segments Chemicals, Plastics, Performance Products, Agricultural Products & Nutrition and Oil & Gas. The company occasionally advertises to the public. Its slogan is "BASF The Chemical Company"
Chemicals
BASF produces a wide range of chemicals, for example 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 is the international leading producer of styrenes. Engineering plastics are sold to injection molders in a variety of industries. BASF’s polyurethanes have very diverse uses worldwide.
Performance Products
BASF produces a range of
performance chemicals,
coatings and
functional polymers. These include raw materials for detergents, textile and leather chemicals, pigments and raw materials for adhesives. Customers are the automotive, oil, paper, packaging, textile, sanitary products, detergents, construction materials, coatings, printing and leather industries.
Agricultural Products & Nutrition
BASF is a supplier of agricultural products and chemicals for agriculture and animal nutrition, and for the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic industries. In the field of plant biotechnology, BASF is concentrating on solutions for effective agriculture, healthier nutrition and plants to make products more efficiently. Products from this segment include fungicides, herbicides, vitamins, pharmaceutical active ingredients and
UV absorbers for sun creams. The company recently has diverted their research interests to
Nutrigenomics to tailor the social responsibility of
public health .
Cosmetics
BASF Cosmetic Solutions specializes in chemicals that many name brand skin care companies worldwide use to formulate their own products. Chemical types such as but not limited too. Emulsifiers, solubilizers, anionic surfactants, glycol polymers, colorants, styling polymers, hair setting resins, conditioning agents, thickening polymers, emollients and UV absorbers.
Oil & Gas
BASF explores for and produces oil and gas through its subsidiary
Wintershall Holding AG. In Central and
Eastern Europe, Wintershall works with its Russian partner
Gazprom.
Production
BASFs 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 a large number of 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 (for example steam of various temperatures, sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide etc.). 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.
Environmental Record
In 2006 BASF was praised by the Climate Leadership Index for their efforts in problems with climate change and greenhouse gasses in our world. In recent years the BASF Company has sent aside a large portion of their R&D budget on resource conservation. One of their recent developments has been creating filters for wastewater treatments plants that help to reduce emissions. Another recent environmental move the BASF Company has done is formed a partnership with Columbia University. The BASF Company and Columbia University came together so that they can 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.” Even though it seems to be a lot of waste, BASF has shown improvement in that they've steadily reduced their waste emissions in the last few years.
BASF history
BASF was founded in
Mannheim,
Germany, by Friedrich Engelhorn in
1865 for the production of dyes. In
1867, research into synthesis of the dye
indigo was successfully concluded. Until this time, indigo was extracted from plants and was expensive. Industrial production meant that the price could be cut drastically, and one effect was to make
jeans affordable work clothes. The development of the
Haber process from
1908 to
1912 made it possible to synthesize
ammonia (commonly used in chemical and pyrotechnic warfare as well as some fertillizers), and in
1913 BASF started a new production plant in Oppau, adding fertilizers to its product range.
As a result of this
monopoly, BASF was able to start operations at a new site in Leuna in 1916, where explosives were produced during the First World War. On
September 21,
1921, an explosion occurred in Oppau, killing 565 people. This was the biggest catastrophe in German industry (see
Oppau explosion). Under the leadership of
Carl Bosch, BASF founded
IG Farben together with
Hoechst,
Bayer and three other companies, thus losing its independence. BASF was the nominal survivor, as all shares were exchanged for BASF shares prior to the merger. Rubber, fuels and coatings were added to the product range. In
1935, IG Farben and
AEG presented the magnetophone – the first tape recorder – at the
Radio Exhibition in
Berlin. Following the appointment of
Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in
1933, IG Farben cooperated with the
Nazi regime, profiting from guaranteed volumes and prices and from the
slave labour provided by the government's
concentration camps. IG Farben also achieved notoriety owing to its production of
Zyklon-B, the lethal gas used in Nazi concentration camps.
The Ludwigshafen site was almost completely destroyed during the
Second World War and was subsequently rebuilt. The
allies dissolved IG Farben in November 1945. On
July 28 1948 an explosion in which 207 people died occurred in Ludwigshafen. In 1952, BASF was refounded under its own name. With the
German economic miracle in the 1950s, BASF added synthetics such as nylon to its product range. BASF developed polystyrene in the 1930s and invented Styropor in 1951.
In the 1960s, production abroad was expanded and plants were built in
Argentina,
Australia,
Belgium,
Brazil,
France,
United Kingdom,
India,
Italy,
Japan,
Mexico,
Spain and the
United States. Following a change in corporate strategy in
1965, greater emphasis was placed on higher-value products such as coatings, pharmaceuticals, crop protection agents and fertilizers. Following the
reunification of Germany, BASF acquired a site in Schwarzheide, eastern Germany, on
October 25 1990.
On
May 30 2006, BASF bought the
Engelhard Corporation for 4.8 billion USD. This takeover is the largest takeover in the company's history. BASF is now the world's largest manufacturer of
catalytic converters.
Other acquisitions in 2006 were the purchase of Johnson Polymer and the construction chemicals business of
Degussa.
The acquisition of Johnson Polymer was completed on
July 1, 2006. The purchase price was $470 million on a cash and debt-free basis. It provides BASF with a range of water-based resins that complements its portfolio of high solids and UV resins for the coatings and paints industry and will strengthen the company’s market presence, in particular in North America.
Also on July 1, 2006 the acquisition of the construction chemicals business of Degussa AG was completed. The purchase price for equity was just under €2.2 billion. In addition, the transaction was associated with debt of €0.5 billion.
There has been criticism from anti-biotechnology protest groups at BASF' plans for wanting to hold trials of GMO potatoes in the UK.
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