BASF SE says that it has made changes to its board of executive directors in line with its “Winning Ways” strategy. The Supervisory Board has appointed Dr. Mary Kurian and Dr. Livio Tedeschi as members of the Board of Executive Directors effective from May 1, 2026. At the same time, Michael Heinz will retire as planned.
BASF and Yara International ASA say that they have jointly decided to discontinue their project to develop a 1.4 million t/a low-carbon ammonia production facility with carbon capture and storage in the US Gulf Coast region. The companies say that this decision reflects their “commitment to focus on initiatives with the highest potential to achieve their respective value creation goals.” Yara will continue its ammonia strategy as previously communicated, evaluating and maturing equity investment opportunities in US ammonia to determine the optimal project portfolio.
BASF says that it has signed a cooperation agreement with Plug Power to offer BASF’s advanced DeOxo catalysts as part of Plug Power’s hydrogen liquefaction plants globally to enhance their market offerings, improving reliability and cost efficiency. DeOxo catalysts, including the Purivate™ Pd15 product, offer exceptional performance at low temperatures, reducing the need for expensive […]
BASF has expanded its sustainable product portfolio by launching two new renewable ammonia grades; renewable ammonia and renewable 24.5% ammonia solution. BASF produces the renewable ammonia grades at its Verbund site in Ludwigshafen by feeding renewable hydrogen into the ammonia plant, reducing the plant’s natural gas consumption. The plant uses both gas-based hydrogen as well […]
BASF Corporation has appointed Heather Remley as its new president and chief executive officer, effective April 1, 2025. She takes the helm of the North American arm of BASF SE, one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Remley has a background in global leadership and operations. Most recently, she was president of BASF’s global engineering services division in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Before that, she led the company’s North American petrochemicals business as senior vice president in Houston. Since joining BASF in 2016, she has held key positions across the US, China, and Germany.
Due to ever stricter legislation towards lower SO2 emissions, superior catalyst shape and composition has become ever more important. Jochen Willersinn of BASF SE explains how BASF’s high-performance catalyst O4-116 Quattro combines the benefits of an increased surface area with a superior caesium-promoted active phase composition enabling significantly lower ignition and operating temperatures and thus reducing SO2 emissions.
While there is still a considerable push for use of biomass waste as a lower carbon feedstock for chemical production via gasification to syngas, biological processes such as fermentation are increasingly gaining traction as an alternative.
Methanex Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire OCI Global’s international methanol business for $2.05 billion. The transaction includes OCI’s interest in two world-scale methanol facilities in Beaumont, Texas, one of which also produces ammonia. The transaction also includes a low-carbon methanol production and marketing business and a currently idled methanol facility in the Netherlands.
The prospect of a drastic expansion in potassium sulphate production has been linked to a plethora of projects in Australia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. These have sought to take advantage of market tightness and high price premiums. Yet investor interest in supposedly promising projects has waned over the last few years. In this insight article, CRU’s Alexander Chreky explains the reasons behind the high project failure rate, as well as highlighting some limited successes.
Emerging evidence suggests that by-products used as fertilizers, particularly ammonium sulphate, may emerge as winners from the EU’s implementation of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). In this article, Franck Boher of Upgraid investigates whether by-products can help reshape sustainable fertilizer production in Europe.