BASF today announced that as part of its portfolio management, it intends to divest its global pigments business.
Announcing the company’s financial results in Ludwigshafen, Martin Brudermüller, CEO, said that the company is initiating the sale of this business, which includes a broad portfolio of pigments and effect pigments as well as preparations. The operation generated sales of around €1 billion ($1.14 billion) in 2018, has approximately 2,600 employees, and serves more than 5,000 customers worldwide. BASF aims to conclude a transaction by the end of 2020 at the latest. Clariant is also in the process of selling its pigments operation.
Responding to CW’s question, Brudermüller said that the operation is no longer driven by innovation, is experiencing slow growth, and has many competitors in Asia. He further said that part of this business was acquired when BASF bought Ciba. BASF tells CW that the pigments business has manufacturing assets in Europe, United States, and Asia. In Europe, plants are located at Maastricht, Netherlands; Cologne, Ludwigshafen, and Besigheim, Germany; Huningue, France; and Monthey, Switzerland. In the United States, the company has facilities at Newport, Hartwell, North Charleston, and Peekskill. It also has a manufacturing facility at Ulsan, South Korea.
By Natasha Alperowicz
Source: Chemical Week
When things are rushed, there’s a higher chance they can go wrong. We ended up with factories being built almost solely for the economic multiplier effect from construction activity without sufficient regard for raw-material supply and how to sell the output. We saw this in purified terephthalic acid.
INEOS has already committed over £500m spend on projects which are approved and currently being implemented at Grangemouth. This includes investment in our New Energy Plant, which is due for completion in late 2023 and will supply energy to all our site operations and the highly efficient technology will drive down emissions by at least 150,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.
As with its other waste collection processes, Indaver will collect post-consumer polystyrene (PS), such as yogurt pots and single-use packaging, and recycle and produce the r-styrene through a proprietary depolymerization technology at its Antwerp, Belgium site.
