The chemical industry has been suffering from a reduction in customer inventories since autumn 2022. Due to a weak second quarter, a number of chemical companies have already made significant cuts in their annual targets. These include BASF, Lanxess, Clariant and Evonik. Corporations such as BASF have announced that they will invest more abroad – for example in China – because of the high production costs in Germany. There, BASF is currently building a new Verbund site in Zhanjiang for 10 billion euros, the largest single investment in the company’s history. In addition, an offshore wind farm is being built with a Chinese partner to supply the plant with electricity. After completion, which is scheduled for 2023, Zhanjiang will be BASF’s third-largest production site in the world. Critics complain that the group is making itself dependent on China with the billion-euro investment.
Also read: BASF’s dangerous China bet
The chemical industry, which is hungry for electricity and gas, is particularly affected by high energy prices. Industrial customers in Germany are currently paying three times as much as in France per kilowatt hour, four times as much as in the USA and seven times as much as in China. Even if electricity costs have fallen, they are still above the pre-crisis level, said Steilemann. He again campaigned for a state-subsidized industrial electricity price that would serve as a bridge for the industry until enough renewable electricity was available – around the early 2030s. Advisors to the federal government are critical of the industrial electricity price for energy-intensive companies proposed by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) – also with a view to the tight state budget. The aid would cost up to 30 billion euros.