BASF - PLASTICS

 

 

 

 

BASF is a German multinational chemical company founded in 1865 and headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

 

The company is one of the largest plastics and resin supplier and has one of the most comprehensive plastics portfolios. It also provides a large number of chemicals, dyes, pharmaceutical ingredients and agricultural products.

 

In 2016, BASF employed more than 113,000 people in over 200 countries with over 50,000 in Germany alone and 39,000 in the plastic and resin industry. According to Forbes it generated sales of about $64 billion.

 

At the end of 2017, the company employed around 115,490 people, with over 52,000 in Germany. In 2015, BASF posted sales of €70.4 billion and income from operations before special items of about €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 Mangalore, India.

 

Plastics

BASF's plastic products include high-performance materials in thermoplastics, foams, and urethanes.

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 - BASF Styrenics consists of the Foams and Copolymers. BASF's styrenic copolymers have applications in electronics, building and construction, and automotive components. In 2011 BASF and INEOS blended their global business activities in the fields of styrene monomers (SM), polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), styrene butadiene copolymers (SBC) and other styrene-based copolymers (SAN, AMSAN, ASA, MABS) into a joint venture named Styrolution.

Polyurethanes - BASF's Polyurethanes business consists of diverse technologies and finished products. Urethane chemicals are raw materials used in rigid and flexible foams commonly used for insulation in the construction and appliance industries, furniture, packaging, and transportation.

Foams - Foams like Styropor are generally used as insulating materials. They are eco-efficient and offer advantages over other materials in terms of cost-effectiveness, preservation of resources and environmental protection. Investments made for insulating materials usually pay for themselves within a short time and contribute to retaining and even enhancing the value of buildings.

Polyamides and Intermediates - BASF manufactures polyamide precursors and polyamide.

Biodegradable plastics - BASF developed a biodegradable plastic with a high content of polylactic acid.

 

 

Corporate Responsibility

 

BASF is one of the founders of the Alliance To End Plastic Waste. They are committed to preventing ocean litter and are looking for other ways to make sustainable use of this material. You can't ask for more than that.


Takeovers

BASF's European coatings business was taken over by AkzoNobel in 1999. BASF bought the Engelhard Corporation for $4.8 billion in 2006. 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 1 July 2006. The purchase price was $470 million on a cash and debt-free basis. It provided 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 strengthened the company’s market presence, particularly in North America. 

The acquisition of Degussa AG's construction chemicals business was completed in 2006. The purchase price for equity was about €2.2 billion. In addition, the transaction was associated with a debt of €500 million.

The company agreed to acquire Ciba (formerly part of Ciba-Geigy) in September 2008. The proposed deal was reviewed by the European Commissioner for Competition. On 9 April 2009, the acquisition was officially completed.

On 19 December 2008, BASF acquired U.S.-based Whitmire Micro-Gen together with U.K.-based Sorex Ltd, Widnes, Great Britain. Sorex is a manufacturer of branded chemical and non-chemical products for professional pest management. In March 2007 Sorex was put up for sale with a price tag of about £100 million.

In May 2015, BASF agreed to sell parts of its pharmaceutical ingredients business to Swiss drug manufacturer Siegfried Holding for a fee of €270 million, including assumed debt.

In October 2017, BASF announced it would buy seed and herbicide businesses from Bayer for €5.9 billion ($7 billion), as part of its acquisition of Monsanto.

 

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CHEMICAL COMPANY A - Z

EMPLOYEES

$ BILLIONS

-

-

-

ALPLA:

17,300

3.3

Аrkema SA:

20,000

8.8

BASF:*

39,000

63.7

Berry Global:*

-

-

Borealis AG:

-

-

Borouge (Abu Dhabi Polymers Co Ltd):

6,500

7.2

Braskem SA:*

-

-

ChevronPhillips Chemical:

5,000

13.4

Clariant:*

-

-

CNPC:( China National Petroleum Corp):

1,470,190

326.0

Covestro:*

-

-

CP Group:*

-

-

Dow Chemicals:*

14,000

49.0

DSM:

-

-

DuPont:

-

-

ENI S.p.A. Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (Versalis):*

33,000

61.6

Exxon Mobil:*

75,600

290.0

Formosa Plastics Corporation:*

2,800

5.0

Henkel:*

-

-

INEOS (Ineos Group AG):

19,000

60.0

Lanxess:

16,700

7.9

LG Chem:

14,000

17.8

Lyondell Bassell:*

13,000

33.0

Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings:*

-

-

Mitsui Chemicals:*

-

-

NOVA Chemicals:*

-

-

OxyChem:*

-

-

Polyone Corp:*

-

-

Procter & Gamble:*

-

-

Reliance Industries Ltd:*

-

-

Repsol SA:

-

-

Sasol Ltd:*

-

-

SABIC: (Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp)*

40,000

35.4

SCG Chemicals:*

-

-

Shell:*

-

-

Sinopec:

249,000

314.4

Suez:*

-

-

Sumitomo Chemical:*

-

-

Tosoh Corp:

-

-

Total SA:*

-

-

Veolia:*

-

-

 

* Denotes membership of the AEPW

 

 

We cannot do without plastics in our modern society. It is incredibly versatile, extending the capabilities of mankind. But plastic is getting bad press from a lack of recycling efficiency in many countries where significant quantities are being flushed out to sea via rivers and other coastal dumping.

 

There is nothing wrong with plastic if it is disposed of carefully. Oil derived plastics are a finite resource and non-renewable demanding special attention, as with the changeover from burning fossil fuels to renewables.

 

This gives us another good reason to develop a system for making the best use of plastic, and this includes recycling it way more effectively than before. We cannot afford to waste plastic that is in our oceans, and we are talking about at least 8 million tons a year of the stuff going out to sea.

 

 

 

FAST FOOD SLOW DEATH - It's not just fast food, it is our exploitative society that is poisoning the planet, without thought for the consequences. We've been living at artificially low prices at the expense of killing other life on earth. Eat cheap now and suffer expensively later, with health services picking up the tab and costing the taxpayer more than if we'd dealt with ocean dumping up front. We are talking here about the consequences of eating toxic fish. Technically, it is possible to remove plastic from seawater. There are two projects currently trying to achieve this, the Ocean Cleanup Projects of Boyan Slat and his giant floating booms, and the Cleaner Ocean Foundation and SeaVax.

 

 

It's easy to dismiss plastics as cheap and nasty materials that wreck the planet, but if you look around you, the reality is that we depend on it. If you want cars, toys, replacement body parts, medical adhesives, paints, computers, water pipes, fiber-optic cables, and a million other things, you'll need plastics as well.

 

If you think we struggle to live with plastics, try imagining for a moment how we'd live without them. Plastic is pretty fantastic. We just need to be smarter and more sensible about how we make it, use it, and recycle it when we're done with it.

 

Most plastics are synthetic, they'd never spontaneously appear in the natural world and they're still a relatively new technology, so animals and other organisms haven't really had chance to evolve so they can feed on them or break them down.

 

Since a lot of the plastic items we use are meant to be low-cost and disposable, we create an awful lot of plastic trash. Put these two things together and you get problems like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a giant "lake" of floating plastic in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean made from things like waste plastic bottles.

 

How can we solve horrible problems like this? One solution is better public education. If people are aware of the problem, they might think twice about littering the environment or maybe they'll choose to buy things that use less plastic packaging.

 

Another solution is to recycle more plastic, but that also involves better public education, and it presents practical problems too (the need to sort plastics so they can be recycled effectively without contamination). A third solution is to develop bioplastics and biodegradable plastics that can break down more quickly in the environment.

 

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCE

 

https://www.basf.com

http://www.polymerdatabase.com

 

 

 

 

BUILD UP - Plastic has accumulated in five ocean hot spots called gyres, see here in this world map derived from information published by 5 Gyres. All that plastic just floating around is a huge waste of resources in a sustainable sense, where we should be aiming for a circular economy.

 

 

 

 

ABS - BIOMAGNIFICATION - CANCER - CARRIER BAGS - COTTON BUDS - DDT - FISHING NETS - HEAVY METALS - MARINE LITTER

MICROBEADS - MICRO PLASTICS - NYLON -  PACKAGING - PCBS -  PET - PETROLEUM - PLASTICS -  POLYCARBONATE - POLYOLEFINS

POLYPROPYLENE - POLYSTYRENE - POLYTHENE - POPS PVC - SHOES - SINGLE USE - SOUP - STRAWS - WATER

 

 

 This website is provided on a free basis as a public information service. copyright © Cleaner Oceans Foundation Ltd (COFL) (Company No: 4674774) 2019. Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom. COFL is a company without share capital.

 

 

 

 

BASF PLASTICS CHEMICALS MANUFACTURERS