MOSCOW (MRC) -- The supervisory board of BASF has today appointed Melanie Maas-Brunner as a member of the company’s executive board, effective 1 February 2021, under a wider redistribution of BASF's executive responsibilities, said Chemweek.
She will succeed Wayne Smith, who is leaving the company on 31 May 2021. Maas-Brunner has been with BASF since 1997 and has headed the company’s nutrition and health division since 2017. She will also take over the position of chief technology officer from BASF chairman Martin Brudermuller and assume responsibility for the three research divisions: advanced materials and systems research, bioscience research, and process research and chemical engineering, as well as the BASF New Business operation on 1 February.
Smith has been with BASF for 16 years and been a board member since 2012. He is currently responsible for North America and the monomers, performance materials, petrochemicals, and intermediates divisions, as well as process research and chemical engineering.
Michael Heinz will take over Smith’s responsibilities in North America on 1 June 2021 after a transition period and retain his responsibilities for South America. Maas-Brunner will additionally take over the the European site and Verbund management responsibilities, as well as global engineering services and corporate environmental protection, health, and safety, and the role of industrial relations director from Heinz on the same date.
Effective 1 June, Brudermuller will also be responsible for corporate legal, compliance, tax, and insurance; corporate development; corporate communications and government relations; corporate human resources; and corporate investor relations. BASF vice chairman, CFO, and chief digital officer Hans-Ulrich Engel will additionally be responsible for corporate finance, corporate audit, global business services, global digital services, and global procurement.
BASF’s other board members are Saori Dubourg and Markus Kamieth. From 1 June, Dubourg will be responsible for agricultural solutions, nutrition and health, care chemicals, and Europe. Kamieth will be responsible for dispersions and pigments, catalysts, coatings, and performance chemicals; Greater China, south and east Asia, Asean, and Australia/New Zealand; and mega projects in Asia.
We remind that BASF restarted its No. 1 steam cracker following a maintenance turnaround 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 polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,760,950 tonnes in the first ten months of 2020, up by 3% year on year. Only high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 978,870 tonnes in January-October 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports minus producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of exclusively of PP random copolymer increased.
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.
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