MOSCOW (MRC) -- The BASF supervisory board today elected Kurt Bock as the new chairman of the supervisory board, said Chemweek.
Bock had previously been elected to the supervisory board of BASF by the annual shareholders’ meeting as a shareholder representative. The term runs until the end of the annual shareholders’ meeting in 2024.
Bock succeeds Jurgen Hambrecht, who announced that he would resign at the end of the annual shareholders’ meeting 2020. Bock was CEO of BASF from 2011 through 2018 and was succeeded by Martin Brudermuller. BASF said at the time that Bock will replace Hambrecht in 2020 after the end of a statutory two-year cooling-off period.
We remind that BASF has restarted its No. 1 steam cracker following a maintenance turnaorund. Thus, the company resumed operations at the plant on September 30, 2019. The plant was shut for maintenance in mid-August, 2019. Located at Ludwigshafen in Germany, the No. 1 cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 235,000 mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 125,000 mt/year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF generated sales of EUR59 billion in 2019.
MRC