Significant Events

January – April 2015

  • Global Creator Space™ tour begins
  • Joint investments: We build an ammonia plant with Yara in Freeport, Texas, and a 2-EHA plant with PETRONAS in Kuantan, Malaysia
  • We aim to globally expand our PVP production

BASF is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2015 with a number of activities and events. With “co-creation” as its motto, the program includes central components like the Creator Space™ tour, which will stop at six stations worldwide. Here, experts from customers, partners and BASF come together to discuss the future’s topics of smart energy, food and urban life. The first stop on the tour, held in January in Mumbai, India, focused on sustainable water management, while urbanization took center stage in Shanghai, China, in March. One highlight of BASF’s anniversary year was the company’s birthday celebration in Ludwigshafen on April 23, 2015. BASF’s employees around the world will receive an anniversary bonus of around €100 million in recognition of their contribution to the company’s success.

Together with Yara International ASA, we will build an ammonia plant in Freeport, Texas, with an annual capacity of 750,000 metric tons and which uses hydrogen directly as a raw material instead of natural gas. This technology considerably reduces investment and maintenance costs as well as carbon emissions as compared with conventional processes. Yara’s share in the joint venture will be 68%, and BASF’s 32%. The plant is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.

We are building a production plant for 2-ethyl hexanoic acid (2-EHA) in Kuantan, Malaysia, with PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (PCG). Construction of the plant, which will have an annual capacity of 30,000 metric tons, is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2015, with startup in the fourth quarter of 2016. 2-Ethyl hexanoic acid is an intermediate used, for example, in the production of synthetic lubricants.

We want to invest in the expansion of our polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) value chain over the next four years. By enlarging existing plants in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Geismar, Louisiana, and by introducing PVP technology at our site in Shanghai, China, we will raise our global PVP production capacity by up to 6,000 metric tons. Mainly because of its properties as a binding agent, PVP is a polymer employed in numerous industries, such as the pharmaceutical sector.