Cover story
Chemical company sales are down in the low oil price environment, but profits are soaring
T
he dollar is strong, oil is cheap, and the global economy is trudging along. Those dominant economic themes are reflected in the current installment of C&EN’s Global Top 50 chemical companies.
Sales are down dramatically for the Global Top 50. The 50 companies combined for $775.2 billion in sales for 2015, the year on which the survey is based. The figure is a 10.8% decline from what the same firms posted a year earlier. Profits, however, went in the other direction. The 44 companies in the Global Top 50 that post profit figures reported a total
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of $96.7 billion, a 15.1% increase from a year earlier. Profit margins for the same firms increased to 13.5% from 10.6%. No company on the list lost money in 2015. It turns out that 2015, though unusual, wasn’t a bad year for chemical companies. Oil prices averaged about $49 per barrel in 2015, down from $93 in 2014, according to the Energy Information Administration.
CREDIT: YANG H. KU/C&EN/SHUTTERSTOCK
ALEXANDER H. TULLO, C&EN NEW YORK CITY
These lower oil prices pulled down chemical prices, but they also gave chemical companies a break on feedstock costs. On balance, lower oil prices have been good for chemical makers, especially those in Asia and Europe, which had been losing out to natural-gas-based chemical makers in the U.S. and the Middle East. Another factor influencing the ranking is the strong dollar. In 2014, a euro cost $1.33 on average. In 2015, it cost $1.11. Other major currencies such as the Japanese yen and the South Korean won also decreased in value against the dollar. Currency strength impacts the ranking because C&EN converts foreign company sales from their local currency to dollars. This year’s Global Top 50 lineup is somewhat changed from last year. Gone from the list is Shell Chemicals, which failed to provide C&EN with a sales figure for its chemical business. Sales declines pushed BP, Tosoh, and Siam Cement off the list. A new company that made the ranking is the Bayer spin-off Covestro. Other new faces include Lubrizol, Honeywell, and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan. Interestingly, these three firms all report their results in the strong U.S. dollar.
1 BASF ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $63.7 billion BASF has been the largest chemical company in the world for a decade, but that streak might soon be broken with a challenge from DowDuPont, set to be formed upon the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont later this year. Rumors circulated early this year that BASF was looking to break up the Dow-DuPont deal with its own offer for DuPont. And regulatory
BASF’s $3.2 billion purchase of Chemetall, a metal treatment specialist, complements BASF’s automotive coatings and materials businesses.
disclosures related to the Dow-DuPont deal hint that BASF floated the idea of buying DuPont’s agricultural chemicals and seeds business before the Dow deal was announced in December. However, a firm offer for DuPont never surfaced. New rumors say BASF may be negotiating a sale of its agricultural chemicals business to Monsanto, with which it already has a seed traits collaboration. Such a deal would upset Bayer’s $65 billion bid for Monsanto, which thus far has been rejected. BASF recently came to terms on a far more modest deal. Last month, it agreed to purchase the metal surface treatment firm Chemetall from Albemarle for $3.2 billion. With technologies that align with the trend to incorporate more aluminum in cars, Chemetall should complement BASF’s automotive coatings business.
2 Dow Chemical ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $48.8 billion Dow Chemical is leading the chemical industry into the largest structural changes it has seen in more than a decade. Its $130 billion merger with DuPont will create a behemoth that would have had nearly $70 billion in 2015 chemical sales, enough to consider the new company, DowDuPont, the largest chemical company in the world. And that’s without Dow’s absorption of Dow Corning, completed last month, which adds more than $4 billion in sales to its top line. But DowDuPont isn’t being built to last. Within two years of its formation, it is set to fragment into three firms—a material science company, a specialty products firm, and an agrochemical giant—each of which has the heft to make it into the Global Top 50. The Dow-DuPont merger is helping instigate other transactions. It isn’t a coincidence that ChemChina’s pending purchase of Syngenta and Bayer’s offer for Monsanto were both unveiled after the merger announce-
ment. Yet another Dow-related transaction could have an impact on the Global Top 50. Dow’s sale of its chlorine business to Olin last year could propel Olin, which will soon have about $7 billion in annual sales, into the ranking.
3 Sinopec ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $43.8 billion A big decline in the price of oil and related raw materials last year pinched chemical revenues at Sinopec, as it did for many other firms. At the same time, the lower raw material prices helped Sinopec, China’s largest chemical company, return to profitability last year. Wang Yupu, Sinopec’s chairman, expects 2016 to be another tumultuous year. “Looking ahead, the global economy is expected to be characterized by slow growth, weak international trade, low inflation, sluggish investments, and high levels of debt,” he wrote in the company’s most recent annual report. “The Chinese economy may face downward pressure while maintaining its moderate growth.”
4 SABIC ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $34.3 billion In the 2000s, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. led the Middle Eastern building boom by spending billions of dollars on petrochemical projects in its home country, which is blessed with an abundance of cheap natural gas feedstocks such as ethane. Now, as that supply gets tighter, the company is interested in diversification. SABIC and Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group are studying whether to build a coal-to-chemicals plant in China’s interior. SABIC and Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco are studying a crude-oil-to-chemicals complex in Saudi Arabia. Separately, SABIC and Aramco recently denied rumors that they might merge as part of Saudi Arabia’s economic modernization effort.
CREDIT: CHEMETALL
5 Formosa Plastics ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $29.2 billion The Taiwanese chemical maker Formosa Plastics Group has a healthy appetite for massive U.S. projects that tap into low-cost shale natural gas. U.S. affiliate Formosa Plastics USA is already building an ethylene cracker and propane dehydrogenation plant in Point Comfort, Texas. Last year, another affiliate, Formosa Petrochemical, unveiled a study of a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex that would be built in St. James, La., in two phases spanning about a decade. JULY 25, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $28.5 billion The past year has been productive for Ineos, which has rocketed up C&EN’s ranking from number nine in 2015. Ineos took over BASF’s share of the Styrolution styrenic resins joint venture late in 2014. And the company just completed acquiring Solvay’s stake in the Inovyn polyvinyl chloride joint venture, two years ahead of schedule. Ineos’s ethylene cracker in Norway recently received its first shipment of ethane extracted from low-cost U.S. shale gas. Similar deliveries will soon reach Ineos’s cracker in Scotland, where the company is restarting an ethylene unit that has been idle since 2008.
7 ExxonMobil ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $28.1 billion As the chemical arm of one of the world’s largest oil companies, ExxonMobil Chem-
ExxonMobil launched Exceed XP polyethylene for agricultural film and other applications earlier this year. ical can capitalize on opportunities where they arise. In Texas, the company is building an ethylene cracker and downstream polyethylene plants to take advantage of inexpensive natural gas. In Singapore, where it operates one of its largest chemical and refining facilities, ExxonMobil recently started up a cracker that can process crude oil directly. The company’s R&D organization also has been active. In April, ExxonMobil launched the Exceed XP line of “extreme performance” polyethylene, which allows plastics converters to make film more efficiently and with less material than they can with conventional polyethylene.
8 LyondellBasell Industries ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $26.7 billion In 2014, when activist investor Daniel Loeb was trying to instigate a breakup of Dow
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JULY 25, 2016
Chemical, he issued a report comparing Dow unfavorably to LyondellBasell Industries. Dow could earn $2.5 billion per year more, Loeb asserted, if it was more like Lyondell. Lyondell is among the most fiscally conservative of the large chemical makers and a rarity in that it hasn’t launched a grassroots ethylene cracker project in the U.S. But through incremental improvement projects over the past several years, Lyondell has managed to increase its capacity by 20%, adding roughly a cracker’s worth of output more quickly and cheaply than competitors. “I am confident that we are building a company that will remain the benchmark for operational excellence and financial performance,” noted CEO Bhavesh V. (Bob) Patel in his annual letter to shareholders.
9 Mitsubishi Chemical ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $24.3 billion Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings’ industrial gas unit, Taiyo Nippon Sanso, is making inroads into the North American market through its recent purchase of air separation, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide plants from Air Liquide, which was required to sell the units to quell antitrust concerns over its takeover of Airgas. Taiyo Nippon Sanso, the world’s fifth-largest industrial gas maker, also made acquisitions in Thailand and Australia. Mitsubishi Chemical, meanwhile, has completed formation of an ethylene joint venture in Mizushima, Japan, with Asahi Kasei. In another potential Japanese consolidation move, Mitsubishi Rayon is negotiating an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene merger with Japanese rivals Ube Industries and JSR.
10 DuPont ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $20.7 billion In a few months, the DuPont we have known since 1802 will be no more. It will merge with Dow Chemical to form DowDuPont and eventually be scattered among three new spin-off firms. But the DuPont name, at least, will live on in one of them—the agricultural chemicals and seeds firm, which will retain headquarters in Wilmington, Del. So will the specialty products firm that will spin out of DowDuPont. That firm, with products such as Kevlar and Corian, will have a hefty dose of DuPont lineage. But it isn’t the merger alone that will forever alter DuPont. Simultaneous with the merger announcement in December came the disclosure that DuPont was cutting 10% of its workforce of 54,000. As part of that program,
DuPont has pledged that the new agricultural chemicals firm it is forming with Dow Chemical will have headquarters in Wilmington, Del. the company “redesigned” its storied Central R&D operation into a smaller Science & Innovation unit.
11 LG Chem ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $18.2 billion LG Chem is another firm that has gotten into the agrochemical mergers and aquisitions act, though not nearly at the same scale as rivals such as Bayer, ChemChina, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, and DuPont. LG is paying $432 million to acquire Dongbu Farm Hannong, which produces generic crop protection chemicals, seeds, and fertilizers in South Korea. Elsewhere in LG, managers have high expectations for the firm’s expanding lithium-ion battery business.
12 Air Liquide ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $17.3 billion The French industrial gas giant nabbed a coveted gas property earlier this year with its $13.4 billion acquisition of Airgas. The purchase of the U.S. player diversified Air Liquide geographically. It also added a retail gas business to a firm traditionally focused on large industrial clients. The deal should secure Air Liquide’s position as the world’s largest industrial gas company, comfortably ahead of Linde. The synergy between Air Liquide and Airgas comes at a price. Air Liquide paid about twice what Air Products & Chemicals was willing to pay in its failed 2011 bid for Airgas.
13 Linde ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $16.8 billion Linde hasn’t made a big-ticket acquisition like Air Liquide, its main European industrial gas rival. The German firm’s largest transaction over the past year was its purchase of American HomePatient, set to add about $280 million to its annual
CREDIT: EXXONMOBIL (PLANTS); DUPONT (BUILDING)
6 Ineos
Global Top 50 For the 10th time, BASF leads the ranking, but Dow Chemical’s merger with DuPont might soon change that.
RANK 2015 2014a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
1 2 3 4 6 9 5 7 11 8 13 15 17 16 21 20 24 14 23 -18 22 25 10 19 29 31 26 32 33 28 38 39 27 41 35 34 43 36 37 30 42 45 -49 47 50 -40 --
COMPANY BASF Dow Chemical Sinopec SABIC Formosa Plasticse Ineos ExxonMobil LyondellBasell Industries Mitsubishi Chemical DuPontf LG Chem Air Liquide Linde AkzoNobel Toray Industries Evonik Industries PPG Industries Braskem Yara Covestro Sumitomo Chemical Reliance Industries Solvay Bayer Mitsui Chemicals Praxair Shin-Etsu Chemicalf Lotte Chemical Huntsman Corp. Syngenta DSM Air Products & Chemicals Eastman Chemical Chevron Phillips Chemical Mosaic Lanxess Borealis Arkema Asahi Kasei Sasol SK Innovation DIC Hanwha Chemical Lubrizol Ecolabf Indorama Johnson Mattheyf Honeywellf PTT Global Chemical PotashCorp
CHEMICAL OPERATING CHEMICAL CHEMICAL PROFITS AS IDENTIFIABLE CHEMICAL CHANGE SALES AS % HEADQUAR- OPERATING CHANGE % OF TOTAL OPERATING CHEMICAL SALES FROM OF TOTAL TERS PROFITSb FROM OPERATING PROFIT ASSETS ($ MILLIONS) 2014 SALES COUNTRY ($ MILLIONS) 2014 PROFIT MARGINc ($ MILLIONS) $63,749 48,778 43,799 34,349 29,209 28,493 28,134 26,676 24,348 20,700 18,173 17,316 16,831 16,488 15,520 14,988 14,241 14,174 13,869 13,407 13,297 12,854 12,258 11,504 11,102 10,776 10,573 10,357 10,299 9,925 9,915 9,895 9,648 9,248 8,895 8,768 8,544 8,525 8,449 8,282 8,212 7,124 7,106 7,000 6,863 6,854 6,510 6,486 6,428 6,279
-2.9% -16.1 -22.9 -20.7 -16.1 15.2 -26.3 -23.4 5.0 -30.9 -9.0 8.0 8.5 3.9 4.5 4.6 -0.1 2.7 17.4 2.7 -14.6 -14.9 3.9 -51.0 -13.3 -12.2 1.9 -21.2 -11.0 -12.1 -3.7 -5.2 1.3 -31.1 -1.8 -1.3 -7.6 29.1 -9.0 -6.3 -26.5 -0.8 -0.2 1.4 -4.9 -3.8 -2.5 -8.6 -28.8 -11.7
81.5% 100.0 13.9 87.0 63.9 100.0 10.8 81.5 77.1 82.4 100.0 95.3 84.5 100.0 89.3 100.0 92.9 100.0 100.0 100.0 76.6 29.8 100.0 30.2 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 74.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 51.7 57.1 19.2 100.0 100.0 100.0 50.7 100.0 39.8 16.8 54.6 100.0
Germany U.S. China Saudi Arabia Taiwan Switzerland U.S. Netherlands Japan U.S. South Korea France Germany Netherlands Japan Germany U.S. Brazil Norway Germany Japan India Belgium Germany Japan U.S. Japan South Korea U.S. Switzerland Netherlands U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. Germany Austria France Japan South Africa South Korea Japan South Korea U.S. U.S. Thailand U.K. U.S. Thailand Canada
$5,743 6,373 3,134 10,683 2,502 4,248 5,697 6,353 1,456 na 1,612 3,363 4,606 1,622 1,326 2,038 2,287 2,325 2,499 721 1,065 1,594 1,282 2,087 643 3,571 1,723 1,424 706 na 352 1,870 1,567 na 1,357 638 797 670 626 1,796 381 463 298 na na 211 627 na 666 1,720
-12.8% 7.1 nm -11.2 80.5 83.9 -0.1 3.8 90.8 na 4.6 9.3 8.2 36.4 23.3 40.7 6.1 123.6 44.4 30.0 17.1 23.3 6.3 -22.8 62.1 -8.6 12.5 359.1 -10.3 na 24.3 16.6 26.5 na -12.1 40.9 192.9 35.1 -3.9 23.3 19.9 22.1 139.0 na na 33.6 0.1 na 14.5 -19.8
82.8% 100.0 38.0 93.1 57.8 100.0 26.4 97.9 63.0 na 100.0 97.8 94.1 100.0 103.9 100.0 94.3 100.0 100.0 100.0 78.4 28.6 100.0 30.8 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 na 100.0 100.0 100.0 na 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 41.3 49.2 21.8 100.0 100.0 na na 100.0 86.1 na 73.8 100.0
9.0% 13.1 7.2 31.1 8.6 14.9 20.2 23.8 6.0 na 8.9 19.4 27.4 9.8 8.5 13.6 16.1 16.4 18.0 5.4 8.0 12.4 10.5 18.1 5.8 33.1 16.3 13.8 6.9 na 3.5 18.9 16.2 na 15.3 7.3 9.3 7.9 7.4 21.7 4.6 6.5 4.2 na na 3.1 9.6 na 10.4 27.4
$64,872 68,026 23,967 65,031 40,252 na 28,410 na 23,754 14,037 16,427 28,990 na 17,713 16,504 18,869 13,560 17,974 14,732 11,686 13,995 11,290 28,106 15,790 11,181 18,319 20,736 10,140 9,820 na 13,030 17,438 15,611 13,597 17,412 8,010 10,276 9,677 10,750 11,989 3,750 6,415 12,249 na na 6,473 3,389 na 8,113 17,469
CHEMICAL ASSETS OPERATING AS % OF RETURN ON TOTAL CHEMICAL ASSETS ASSETSd 82.5% 100.0 10.4 74.3 68.1 na 8.4 na 70.8 63.4 100.0 95.6 na 100.0 87.7 100.0 79.4 100.0 100.0 100.0 63.6 16.4 100.0 22.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 na 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 56.9 47.9 13.5 100.0 100.0 na na 100.0 87.6 na 73.6 100.0
8.9% 9.4 13.1 16.4 6.2 na 20.1 na 6.1 na 9.8 11.6 na 9.2 8.0 10.8 16.9 12.9 17.0 6.2 7.6 14.1 4.6 13.2 5.7 19.5 8.3 14.0 7.2 na 2.7 10.7 10.0 na 7.8 8.0 7.8 6.9 5.8 15.0 10.2 7.2 2.4 na na 3.3 18.5 na 8.2 9.8
Note: Some figures converted at 2015 average exchange rates of $1.00 U.S. = 3.336 Brazilian reals, 0.6543 British pounds, 6.2827 Chinese renminbi, 0.9012 euros, 64.11 Indian rupees, 121.05 Japanese yen, 1,130.96 Korean won, 8.0681 Norwegian krone, 3.75 Saudi riyals, 0.9628 Swiss francs, 31.744 new Taiwan dollars, and 34.241 Thai bhat. a Prior year rankings are as they appeared in the July 27, 2015, issue of C&EN. b Operating profit is sales less administrative expenses and cost of sales. c Operating profit as a percentage of sales. d Chemical operating profit as a percentage of identifiable assets. e C&EN estimates. f Sales include a significant amount of nonchemical products. na = not available. nm = not meaningful. JULY 25, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
35
purchase of Air Products & Chemicals’ performance materials business. Klaus Engel, Evonik’s CEO, called the purchase, his company’s largest ever, “an excellent and complementary fit with Evonik on all levels.” Indeed, nearly all the businesses it is getting in the transaction are closely related to ones it already has. For example, Air Products’ wetting agents for coatings
Evonik says its acquisition of an Air Products & Chemicals business complements its own business in surfactants. complement Evonik’s dispersants and specialty silicas for paint. Separately, Evonik says R&D initiatives will add more than $1 billion to its sales by 2025.
Spending BASF leads the Global Top 50 in both capital and R&D investment.
2015 ($ MILLIONS)
Late last year, Linde inaugurated its pilot reformer in Pullach, Germany. sales. Linde is expanding much-needed neon capacity at its facility in La Porte, Texas. Another development comes from its engineering unit, which is testing out a “dry reforming” process to make carbon monoxide and hydrogen from methane and carbon dioxide.
14 AkzoNobel ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $16.5 billion In recent years, AkzoNobel has been one of the quietest of the big chemical names. However, earlier in 2016, it agreed to purchase BASF’s industrial coatings division for about $500 million. The acquisition strengthens Akzo’s business in coatings for sheet metal used to fabricate objects such as washing machines and refrigerators. In May, the company opened an R&D center in Shanghai that employs 150 scientists.
15 Toray Industries ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $15.5 billion Already the world’s largest carbon fiber company, Toray Industries recently expanded a supply agreement with Boeing that will give it $11 billion in business over the next 10 years supplying materials for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and other aircraft. To help it fill these orders, the company plans to spend $400 million on carbon fiber precursor, carbon fiber, and resin-impregnated fabric manufacturing in Spartanburg, S.C. Toray may eventually invest as much as $1 billion in the facility.
16 Evonik Industries ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $15.0 billion Evonik Industries appears to be making an ideal acquisition in its pending $3.8 billion
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JULY 25, 2016
Air Liquide Air Products & Chemicals AkzoNobel Arkema Asahi Kasei BASF Bayer Borealis Braskem Covestro DIC Dow Chemical DSM DuPont Eastman Chemical
$2,172
Evonik Industries ExxonMobil Huntsman Corp. Indorama Johnson Matthey Lanxess LG Chem Linde
% CHANGE FROM 2014
8.4%
% OF CHEMICAL SALES
12.5%
CHEMICAL R&D SPENDING 2015 ($ MILLIONS)
$313
% CHANGE FROM 2014
1.4%
% OF CHEMICAL SALES
1.8%
1,615
-4.1
16.3
139
-1.4
1.4
722 547 499 4,649 818 373 1,216 565 258 3,703 508 773
10.7 4.9 13.2 1.6 -45.2 -9.1 -24.5 -16.8 -4.1 3.7 -17.6 -13.9
4.4 6.4 5.9 7.3 7.1 4.4 8.6 4.2 3.6 7.6 5.1 3.7
385 232 na 2,112 1,208 127 53 285 100 1,598 377 1,683
-4.4 34.8 na 3.8 -8.0 -11.5 27.5 21.2 11.1 -3.0 5.3 -2.9
2.3 2.7 na 3.3 10.5 1.5 0.4 2.1 1.4 3.3 3.8 8.1
652
9.9
6.8
251
10.6
2.6
1,016 2,494 663 300 256 482 263 2,087
-16.3 17.2 10.3 21.9 4.2 -29.3 -37.8 -0.5
6.8 8.9 6.4 4.4 3.9 5.5 1.4 12.4
482 na 160 na 287 144 na 93
5.1 na 1.3 na 10.7 -18.8 na 16.7
3.2 na 1.6 na 4.4 1.6 na 0.6
LyondellBasell Industries
1,319
-3.7
4.9
102
-19.7
0.4
Mitsubishi Chemical
1,199
12.9
4.9
na
na
na
Mitsui Chemicals Mosaic PotashCorp PPG Industries Praxair Sasol
355 1,000 1,217 476 1,541 1,998
-9.0 7.6 6.9 -18.9 -8.8 39.4
3.2 11.2 19.4 3.3 14.3 24.1
260 na na 486 93 na
-3.1 na na -1.2 -3.1 na
2.3 na na 3.4 0.9 na
Shin-Etsu Chemical Sinopec Solvay Sumitomo Chemical
1,113
22.6
10.5
439
12.7
4.2
2,781 1,056
10.2 3.1
6.3 8.6
na 307
na 12.1
na 2.5
690
40.8
5.2
na
na
na
Toray Industries Yara
1,062 1,194
6.9 37.2
6.8 8.6
na 20
na 4.5
na 0.1
Note: Figures are for companies reporting capital and/or R&D expenditures. na = not available.
CREDIT: LINDE (BUILDING); EVONIK (FOAM); BRASKEM (PLANT)
CHEMICAL CAPITAL SPENDING
foothold in the NAFTA region. Braskem is also investing $100 million to convert 15% of its chemical production in Camaçari, Brazil, to shale-based ethane imported from the U.S.
19 Yara 17 PPG Industries ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $14.2 billion PPG Industries is getting the lead out, literally. In May, the company said it would join rival AkzoNobel and remove all lead from its paint, by 2020 in its case. Although lead hasn’t been present in consumer products sold in the U.S. for decades, it is still used in yellow and orange pigments in some industrial coatings. In another environmentally friendly move, PPG began a study with the tire maker Bridgestone into the use of PPG’s Agilon modified precipitated silicas to produce tires that can improve fuel efficiency by up to 6%.
18 Braskem ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $14.2 billion Brazil’s largest chemical maker has been able to avoid the misfortunes of its home country. Although Brazil is plagued by economic hardship, scandal, and political turmoil, the collapse of Brazil’s currency, the real, and the fall in oil prices have protected Braskem from cheap U.S. imports and helped make its Brazilian operations more competitive. Moreover, the company started an ethylene and polyethylene joint venture in Mexico, giving it a new low-cost
Braskem recently started up its BraskemIdesa ethylene and polyethylene joint venture in Mexico.
▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $13.9 billion Yara managed to increase sales and earnings in 2015 even though the company faced weak fertilizer markets and production downtime. A pair of Latin American acquisitions lifted regional results. Now, with an ammonia joint venture with BASF under construction in Texas, the company is preparing for its next growth spurt. The proposed merger between CF Industries and OCI would have challenged Yara’s status as the world’s largest publicly traded fertilizer maker, but new U.S. Treasury Department tax rules against corporate tax inversions scuttled that deal.
20 Covestro
the U.S. laden with cheap shale-derived ethane feedstock for ethylene production. Otherwise, Reliance Industries has been focusing on its polyester business. The company recently commissioned new capacity for polyethylene terephthalate and its key raw material, purified terephthalic acid (PTA), in Dahej, India. Next year, the company will complete a project to double its capacity for p-xylene, a PTA raw material.
23 Solvay ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $12.3 billion Belgium’s premier chemical maker closed on its purchase of Cytec Industries at the end of last year. The U.S. maker of composite materials will bolster Solvay’s business in materials for aircraft and enhance its highend polymers business. Earlier this month, Solvay sold its stake in the Inovyn chlorovinyls joint venture to Ineos, completing its exit two years ahead of schedule. The company also inked an agreement to sell Solvay Indupa, its South American chlorovinyls business, to Brazil’s Unipar Carbocloro.
▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $13.4 billion The former Bayer MaterialScience business debuts in C&EN’s ranking this year after ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $11.5 billion being spun off from Bayer on Sept. 1, 2015, and later floated on Frankfurt’s stock exBayer is a vastly changed company from change. Bayer still owns about 64% of the a year ago. In September, it spun off its company’s shares, but it aims to eventually MaterialScience business. The new polysell them. Covestro has engaged in some urethane and polycarbonate company, restructuring since it became called Covestro, debuts at 20th independent, including closing on the C&EN ranking. Bayer its Tarragona, Spain, methylene named a new chairman, Werner diphenyl diisocyanate plant Baumann. He is taking over from because of high costs and a lack Marijn Dekkers, who left for the of reliable chlorine supply. The For the top post at the consumer prodcompany has also hit some posnext 25 entries ucts giant Unilever. Baumann itive milestones. In Dormagen, in C&EN’s quickly got down to business, Germany, it opened a plant to Global Top 50, making an unsolicited $62 billion make polyols in part from carbon visit cenm. takeover offer for Monsanto. dioxide. ag/2016top50. Bayer upped the offer to $65 billion two weeks ago. The bids follow other agricultural chemical and seed deals such as Dow Chemical’s impending ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $13.3 billion merger with DuPont and ChemChina’s upSumitomo spent the past year beefing up coming purchase of Syngenta. its agrochemical business. Last month, it bought a majority stake in India’s Excel Crop Care to get a foothold in that country’s ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $11.1 billion bustling market. Sumitomo’s Valent USA crop protection division is spending $22 mil- The past year continued a consolidation lion on a research center in Libertyville, Ill. theme for Mitsui Chemicals. This year, the The Japanese company is also building a company closed a toluene diisocyanate plant research center in São Paulo, Brazil. in Kashima, Japan. The company is also closing a methylene diphenyl diisocyanate facility in Omuta, Japan. Earlier, Mitsui closed phenol and bisphenol A plants. However, the ▸ 2015 Chemical Sales: $12.9 billion Japanese firm is also expanding in places. By this time next year, India’s largest chemi- For instance, it is starting up an aliphatic isocal producer could be receiving vessels from cyanate plant in Omuta next month. ◾
24 Bayer
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21 Sumitomo Chemical
25 Mitsui Chemicals
22 Reliance Industries
JULY 25, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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