BASF
BASF SE, an initialism of its original name, is a German multinational company and the largest chemical producer in the world. 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.
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., 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. 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. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
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.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. Caro developed a synthesis for alizarin and applied for a British patent on 25 June 1869. Coincidentally, Perkin applied for a virtually identical patent on 26 June 1869, and the two companies came to a mutual commercial agreement about the process.Further patents were granted for the synthesis of methylene blue and eosin, and in 1880, research began to try to find a synthetic process for indigo dye, though this was not successfully brought to the market until 1897. In 1901, some 80% of the BASF production was dyestuffs.
Solvay process soda (1880)
was produced by the Leblanc process until 1880, when the much cheaper Solvay process became available. BASF ceased to make its own and bought it from the Solvay company thereafter.Knietsch sulfuric acid (1890)
was initially produced by the lead chamber process, but in 1890, a unit using the contact process was brought on stream, producing the acid at higher concentration and a lower cost. This development followed extensive research and development by Rudolf Knietsch, for which he received the Liebig Medal in 1904.Haber's ammonia (1913)
The development of the Haber process from 1908 to 1912, made it possible to synthesize ammonia, and, after acquiring exclusive rights to the process, in 1913, BASF started a new production plant in Oppau, adding fertilizers to its product range. BASF also acquired and began mining anhydrite for gypsum at the Kohnstein in 1917.World War I
In 1916, BASF started operations at a new site in Leuna, where explosives were produced during the First World War. On 21 September 1921, an explosion occurred in Oppau, killing 565 people. The Oppau explosion was the biggest industrial accident in German history.IG Farben (1921)
Under the leadership of Carl Bosch, BASF founded IG Farben with Hoechst, Bayer, and three other companies, thus losing its independence. BASF was the nominal survivor, as all shares were exchanged for BASF shares before the merger. Rubber, fuels, and coatings were added to the range of products.In 1935, IG Farben and AEG presented the magnetophon – the first tape recorder – at the Radio Exhibition in Berlin.
World War II
After the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933, IG Farben cooperated with the National Socialist government, profiting from guaranteed volumes and prices and, in time, from forced labour provided through governmental concentration camps. BASF built a 24 km2 chemical factory in Auschwitz named "IG Auschwitz", the largest chemical factory in the world at the time. IG Farben became notorious through its production of Zyklon-B, the lethal gas used to kill prisoners in German extermination camps during the Holocaust.IG Farben made extensive use of forced labor during WWII consisting mostly of drafted "service-duty" Germans, foreign workers from German-occupied territories, and prisoners of war. By 1943, nearly one-half of all IG Farben workers were forced laborers housed in factory-camp facilities. This number did not include the 51,445 concentration camp laborers supplied by the Nazis. Spread out over 23 facilities, it is estimated that 31,50033,500 of those concentration camp inmates were killed by authorities or died from starvation, exhaustion, or disease.
The Ludwigshafen site was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War but was subsequently rebuilt. The allies dissolved IG Farben in November 1945.
Both the Ludwigshafen and Oppau plants were of strategic importance for the war because the German military needed many of their products. As a result, they were major targets for air raids. During the war, Allied bombers attacked the plants a total of 65 times.
Bombing took place from the autumn of 1943 and saturation bombing inflicted extensive damage. Production virtually stopped by the end of 1944.
Due to a shortage of male workers during the war, women were conscripted to work in the factories, joined later by prisoners of war and foreign civilians. Concentration camp inmates did not work at the Ludwigshafen and Oppau plants.
In July 1945, the American military administration confiscated all IG Farben assets. That same year, the Allied Commission decreed that IG Farben should be dissolved. The sites at Ludwigshafen and Oppau were controlled by French authorities.
BASF refounded (1952)
On 28 July 1948, an explosion occurred at a BASF site in Ludwigshafen, killing 207 people and injuring 3818. In 1952, BASF was refounded under its name following the efforts of former Nazi Party member Carl Wurster, who served in Nazi Germany as Wehrwirtschaftsführer. 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.Post-WW2 20th century
In the 1960s, production abroad was expanded and plants were built in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States. Following a change in corporate strategy in 1965, greater emphasis was placed on higher-value products such as coatings, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and fertilizers. Following German reunification, BASF acquired a site in Schwarzheide, Eastern Germany, on 25 October 1990.In 1968, BASF bought the German coatings company Herbol. BASF completely took over the Herbol branches in Cologne and Würzburg in 1970. Under new management, the renewal and expansion of the trademark continued. After an extensive reorganisation and an increasing international orientation of the coatings business, Herbol became part of the new founded Deco GmbH in 1997.
BASF bought the Wyandotte Chemical Company, and its Geismar, Louisiana chemical plant in the early 1970s. The plant produced plastics, herbicides, and antifreeze. BASF soon tried to operate union-free, having already reduced or eliminated union membership in several other US plants. Challenging the Geismar OCAW union resulted in a labor dispute that saw members locked out from 1984 to 1989, and eventually winning their case. A worker solidarity committee at BASF's headquarters plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, took donations from German workers to support the American strikers and organized rallies and publicity in support. The dispute was the subject of an academic study. The union also exposed major accidental releases of phosgene, toluene and other toxic gases, these being publicized in the local media and through a video, Out of Control. A court threw out a $66,700 fine against BASF for five environmental violations as "too small".
BASF's European coatings business was taken over by AkzoNobel in 1999.
21st century
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.
File:CWRYBASF.JPG|thumb|200px|right|BASF Portsmouth Site in the West Norfolk area of Portsmouth, Virginia, United States. The plant is served by the Commonwealth Railway.
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 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. 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 December 2010, BASF completed the acquisition of Cognis.
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.
Since 2016, BASF has partnered with a subsidiary of Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, a company sanctioned under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, to operate a plant in Korla.
In October 2017, BASF announced it would buy seed and herbicide businesses from Bayer for €5.9 billion, as part of Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto.
The company announced the start of a US$10 billion investment project in the south-western Chinese city of Zhanjiang, in November 2019. The project was approved in 2022. This ″Verbund″ site is intended for the production of engineering plastics and TPU. The site would be the third-largest BASF site worldwide, following Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium. The first plant started up in 2022, and the entire site is expected to be completed by 2030.
In August 2019, BASF agreed to sell its global pigments business to Japanese fine chemical company DIC for €1.15 billion on a cash and debt-free basis.
In September 2019, BASF signed an agreement with DuPont Safety & Construction, a subsidiary business unit of DuPont, to sell its ultrafiltration membrane business, Inge GmbH. According to BASF executives, Inge GmbH and its products fit better with DuPont and their business strategy.
In February 2023, BASF announced that the company is planning to close one of its two ammonia factories at its site in Ludwigshafen, this comes as part of the companies plans to cut costs as the organisation has struggled with high energy costs. The result of the organisations plans will lead to increased production in China while resulting in the loss of 2,600 jobs. The Zhanjiang plant extends over 400 hectares and serves mainly the electronic industry and the automotive industry. In September 2023 BASF broke ground on its Zhanjiang syngas plant; the plant was due to be commissioned by 2025. In November 2023 the firm closed a $5bn 15-year investment deal in China, with Chinese banks.
As of April 2023, BASF had 30 production facilities in China. CEO Martin Brudermüller held that Chinese revenue is essential to grow his European business in the face of "Europe’s high energy costs and stringent environmental rules."