BASF Plans Nearly $300 Million Capital and Maintenance Projects for U.S. Chemical Plants

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). BASF Corporation (Florham Park, New Jersey) a subsidiary of BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany) continues an aggressive plan to add capacity and increase capital investments for its chemical operations located in the United States. Industrial Info is currently tracking 17 active capital and maintenance projects planned to kick-off this year and into 2007 valued at $295 million. This is roughly in line with historical spending for the company. Based on 90 projects identified over the last five years, BASF’s average annual investments totaled nearly $240 million.

Click on the image at right to view the BASF Project Spending Chart.

BASF operates 29 chemical plants in the United States, employing an estimated 6,100 people across sixteen different states. An overwhelming majority of the future project activity is planned to take place in their http://www.industrialinfo.com/opd/opdgcdemo/index.jsp Gulf Coast plant locations in Texas and Louisiana. In Texas, BASF appears to be close to approving a major expansion of the joint venture ethylene plant located in Port Arthur. The nearly one billion pound per year ethylene plant known as BASF Fina Petrochemicals LP will be expanded with the addition of a ninth cracking furnace designed to take a diesel feed stream from the adjacent petroleum refinery. Construction in the field for this nearly $70 million project is expected to begin late this summer.

Louisiana will potentially be home to the largest of projects currently being considered by BASF in the United States. Construction is planned to begin this fall for the expansion of the company’s polyols unit located in the Geismar, Louisiana plant. Also in Geismar, studies are underway for the addition of a new hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) unit that will cost an estimated $100 million to construct.

Ten major maintenance turnarounds are planned to kick-off over the next twelve months, and once again most of the planned activity will take place in Texas or Louisiana with the exception of turnarounds identified in Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania. Investments in these maintenance turnarounds are expected to top an estimated $40 million and equal a significant opportunity for equipment service providers considering the very limited availability of equipment and manpower along the Gulf Coast.

BASF, like much of the chemical processing industry (CPI), continues to scrutinize the strategic location of its assets and their abilities to remain competitive in a market with increased pressure on efficiencies and feedstock costs. To this end, BASF is planning to close three plants in the United States, one each in Mississippi, Virginia and North Carolina. Each of these closures planned for next year represent plants in the plastics and polymers business group and support investment plans that focus on core petrochemical products.

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View Project Report - 15002085 02005801 02005382 27001716 03002576 01010584 01010235

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