Material Investments and Portfolio Measures

In addition to innovations, investments make a decisive contribution toward achieving our ambitious growth and climate protection goals. We use targeted acquisitions to supplement our organic growth. Our focus is on innovation-driven growth areas and sustainable technologies.

By investing in our plants, we create the conditions for the profitable growth we strive for and continuously improve the efficiency of existing production processes. Investments in new technologies and in the transformation of our energy supply will help to achieve our growth targets and our ambitious climate targets. For the period from 2022 to 2026, we are planning capital expenditures (capex)¹ totaling €25.6 billion, including €12.9 billion for our major growth projects.²

• More information on our investments from 2022 onward

With a world market share of over 45%, China is already the largest chemical market and will drive growth in global chemical production to an even greater extent in the future. We expect China’s share to increase to over 50% by 2030. To further strengthen our position in Asia, we plan to build a new integrated Verbund site in Zhanjiang in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. The first plants started construction in 2020, and we made further progress on these in 2021. They are scheduled for startup in 2022. We will also expand the Verbund site we operate together with Sinopec in Nanjing, China, by 2023.

In addition, we are refining our portfolio through acquisitions that promise above-average profitable growth as part of the BASF Verbund to help reach a relevant market position. A key consideration is that these are innovation-driven or offer a technological differentiation, and make new, sustainable business models possible. Investments and acquisitions alike are prepared by interdisciplinary teams and assessed using various criteria. In this way, we ensure that economic, environmental and social concerns are included in strategic decision-making.

Investments in the segments and regions

Investments in property, plant and equipment amounted to €4,078 million in 2021 (2020: €3,516 million). Capex accounted for €3,363 million of this amount (2020: €2,878 million). Our investments in 2021 focused on the Chemicals, Materials, Surface Technologies and Nutrition & Care segments.

Additions to property, plant and equipment^a by segment in 2021

Additions to property, plant and equipment^a by region in 2021

Chemicals

Strategically, our investments concentrate on the growth markets to support the growth of our customers in China. In 2021, for example, we increased the production capacity for tertiary butylamine. Together with our partner Sinopec, we are pushing ahead with plans to further expand the site in Nanjing, China, to strengthen the joint production of chemical products in China. For instance, we plan to further expand our production capacities for propionic aldehyde, propionic acid, purified ethylene oxide, ethanolamines and ethyleneamines, and build a new tert-butyl acrylate plant. The expanded and new plants are scheduled to come onstream in 2023.

At our Verbund site in Antwerp, Belgium, we are significantly expanding our ethylene oxide plant. The project also includes several downstream plants, for example, to produce surfactants. The expansion is scheduled to come onstream in 2022.

Materials

In the Materials segment, production capacities at the methylene diphenyl isocyanate (MDI) plants in Geismar, Louisiana, were successfully increased by one third following the construction of a new MDI synthesis unit, which was completed with the start of operations in 2020. In the final phase, we plan to increase capacities to around 600,000 metric tons per year by 2026. With this gradual capacity expansion, we are supporting the continuing growth of our North American MDI customers.

The construction of the first plants at our smart Verbund site in Zhanjiang, China, is in progress. The new plants are scheduled to come onstream in 2022. They will produce engineering plastics and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) to serve the increasing needs of various growth industries in the southern China market and in other Asian markets.

BASF is investing in a new world-scale production plant for hexamethylenediamine (HMD) at the Chalampé site in France. The new plant will increase BASF’s annual HMD production capacity to 260,000 metric tons. Production is expected to start in 2024.

Industrial Solutions

In the Industrial Solutions segment, we are increasing global production capacity for the antioxidant Irganox® 1010 through a project to expand production at the site in Jurong, Singapore. With the completion of the project in 2022, BASF aims to better serve the growing demand from customers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In addition, we increased production capacity for the antioxidant Irganox® 1520L by 20% at the site in Pontecchio Marconi, Italy, in the first quarter of 2021.

To meet the increasing demand for high-quality dispersions solutions in the growing ASEAN, Australian and New Zealand markets, we have doubled the production capacity for acrylics dispersions in Pasir Gudang, Malaysia. The additional capacities started up in the first quarter of 2021. We are currently building our third electronic-grade sulfuric acid plant in Jiaxing, China. This investment will more than double BASF’s existing sulfuric acid production capacity in the country to serve the rapidly growing semiconductor industry. The site expansion is scheduled for completion in 2023.

Surface Technologies

We aim to expand our position as a leading and innovative provider of battery materials and benefit from the strong growth in this market segment. A global, customer-focused production network for battery materials is crucial here. Construction of our new production plant for cathode materials in Schwarzheide, Germany, continued as planned in 2021. The new plant will use precursors from the production facility under construction in Harjavalta, Finland. The two plants are scheduled for startup in 2022 and will produce cathode active materials for around 20 gigawatt hours of cell capacity per year. With these investments in Finland and Germany, BASF aims to become the first cathode active materials supplier with local production capacities in what are currently the main markets: China, Japan, North America and Europe.

In addition, BASF announced in 2021 that it will build a battery recycling prototype plant in Schwarzheide, Germany. Startup is planned for 2023. The prototype plant will allow for the development of operating procedures and optimization of technology to deliver superior returns of lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries.

Nutrition & Care

In Ludwigshafen, Germany, we started up the expanded vitamin A production facilities for the Nutrition & Care segment in July 2021. We also invested in the expansion of alkoxylate capacities at the Verbund site in Antwerp, Belgium.

By mid-2022, BASF will increase its capacities for methane sulfonic acid by around 65% in response to growing cross-industry demand, strengthening its position as a leading global producer. To this end, we are investing in the construction of a new methane sulfonic acid plant at the Ludwigshafen site in Germany. Methane sulfonic acid is an organic acid used in numerous applications ranging from chemical and biofuel synthesis to industrial cleaning and metal surface treatment in the electronics industry.

Agricultural Solutions

The investment in a formulation hub for crop protection products in Singapore will, from 2022 onward, ensure that multiple formulation technologies are produced in close proximity to farmers in Asia Pacific. We also invested in the expansion of our production site in Sparks, Georgia, establishing a new formulation plant for seed treatment products, which came into operation in 2021. At the Nunhem site in the Netherlands, we continued the expansion of our breeding facilities for vegetable seeds with a state-of-the-art tomato greenhouse, which has been available since 2021. Further investments were made in the modernization of site infrastructure in North America. To meet continuing high demand for our innovative solutions in the future, between 2022 and 2026, we will invest more than €950 million in developing and expanding our infrastructure, including state-of-the-art R&D facilities, and in our production and formulation capacities for active ingredients as well as for seed solutions.

• More information on our segments

Good to know

New Verbund site in Zhanjiang

Based on its goal of net zero emissions by 2050, BASF has made further progress toward reducing its carbon footprint. In June 2021, we signed a purchase agreement for renewable electricity with China Resources Power, Hong Kong, China, under the new Guangdong renewable energy trading rules in China. This will enable us to run the first plants at BASF’s new Verbund site in Zhanjiang entirely on renewable energy. The new plants are scheduled for startup in late 2022. This is a significant step toward transforming of our energy supply in China.

• Discover the smart Verbund site in Zhanjiang, China

Acquisitions

On August 31, 2021, BASF and Shanshan announced the formation of BASF Shanshan Battery Materials Co., Ltd. The newly formed entity is majority-owned by BASF (BASF 51%; Shanshan 49%). It has four sites in Hunan and Ningxia, China, with more than 1,600 employees. BASF Shanshan Battery Materials Co., Ltd. will focus primarily on the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) market while serving global consumer electronic and energy storage market segments. The business is a part of the Catalysts division.

• For more information on this acquisition, see Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements

Following approval of the relevant authorities, we completed the purchase of 49.5% of Vattenfall’s Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm on September 1, 2021.³ The purchase price was €0.3 billion. Wind farm construction began in July 2021. Once fully operational in 2023, the wind farm will be the largest commercial offshore wind farm in the world. This wind farm does not receive any subsidies for the power produced. On December 6, 2021, BASF and Allianz Capital Partners announced that they had reached an agreement on the purchase of a 25.2% interest by Allianz Capital Partners (see “Agreed transactions”).

Divestitures

On May 31, 2021, BASF completed the sale of its production site in Kankakee, Illinois, to a subsidiary of One Rock Capital Partners, LLC. The agreement also includes the vegetable-oil-based sterols and natural vitamin E business as well as the anionic surfactants and esters produced at the Kankakee site. The purchase price was €177 million. The transaction affected the Nutrition & Health and Care Chemicals divisions.

On June 30, 2021, we closed the divestiture of our global pigments business to the Japanese fine chemical company DIC, Tokyo, Japan. The business transfer agreement, which affected around 2,500 employees, was signed on August 29, 2019. The purchase price on a cash and debt-free basis was €1.15 billion. The Dispersions & Pigments division was renamed Dispersions & Resins following the transaction closing.

• For more information on this divestiture, see Note 3 to the Consolidated Financial Statements

On November 9, 2021, BASF and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice sold their shares in Solenis to Platinum Equity, a private equity company based in Beverly Hills, California. With over 5,200 employees, Solenis serves customers in water-intensive industries by helping them solve complex water treatment and process improvement challenges. BASF held a 49% share in Solenis after transferring its paper and water chemicals business to the company in February 2019. This was reported as a non-integral investment accounted for using the equity method. The remaining 51% of the shares were held by funds managed by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and by Solenis management. The purchase price attributable to BASF was €1.1 billion.

On November 30, 2021, we completed the sale of the precision microchemicals business to Entegris. The transaction included fixed assets and inventories. The purchase price amounted to $90 million. The precision microchemicals business was part of the Surface Treatment business unit of BASF’s Coatings division, operating under the Chemetall brand.

Agreed transactions

On November 18, 2021, BASF and KaMin LLC. / CADAM S.A. (KaMin) signed an agreement to sell BASF’s kaolin minerals business to KaMin, a global performance minerals company headquartered in Macon, Georgia. Currently, the kaolin minerals business is part of BASF’s Performance Chemicals division and has approximately 440 employees in North America, Europe and Asia. The divestiture comprises the production hub with sites in Daveyville, Toddville, Edgar, Gordon and related mines, reserves and mills in Toomsboro and Sandersville in Georgia. The refinery catalysts operations located at the same site are not part of the divestiture. Pending approval by the relevant authorities, closing of the transaction is expected in the second half of 2022.

On December 6, 2021, BASF and Allianz Capital Partners, on behalf of Allianz Insurance Companies (Allianz), announced that they had reached an agreement on the purchase of 25.2% of the Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) wind farm by Allianz. This follows a transaction between Vattenfall and BASF under which BASF acquired 49.5% of HKZ from Vattenfall on September 1, 2021. BASF will continue to receive most of the power produced by its originally acquired share of 49.5% of HKZ under a long-term fixed-price corporate power purchasing agreement. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, subject to the approval of the relevant merger control authorities.

On December 28, 2021, BASF reached an agreement to divest its production site in Quincy, Florida, and the associated attapulgite business to Clariant for a purchase price of $60 million. The Quincy facility employs around 75 employees and manufactures clay-based mineral products used in a variety of industrial applications. The transaction affects the Dispersions & Resins division and is expected to close in the summer of 2022, subject to the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities.