23 – Other provisions

Restoration obligations primarily relate to the estimated costs for the filling of wells and the removal of production equipment after the end of production in the Oil & Gas segment.

Provisions for environmental protection and remediation costs cover expected costs for rehabilitating contaminated sites, recultivating landfills, removal of environmental contamination at existing production or storage sites and similar measures.

Provisions for employee obligations primarily include obligations for the granting of long-service bonuses and anniversary payments, variable compensation including associated social security contributions, as well as provisions for early retirement programs for employees nearing retirement. The increase was primarily attributable to higher accruals for variable compensation components.

Obligations from sales and purchase contracts largely include obligations arising from rebates granted and other price discounts in the Agricultural Solutions segment, warranties and product liability, sales commissions, expected losses on contracts. The increase in provisions resulted from higher accruals for rebate programs and for product liabilities.

The restructuring measures provisions include severance payments to departing employees as well as expected costs for site closures, including the costs for demolition and similar measures.

Provisions for litigation, damage claims, warranties and similar commitments contain anticipated expenses from lawsuits in which BASF is the defendant party, as well as obligations under damage claims against BASF and fines.

Other largely includes noncurrent tax provisions.

The following table shows the development of other provisions by category. Other changes include changes in the scope of consolidation, divestitures, currency effects and the reclassification of obligations to liabilities when the amount and timing of these obligations become known.