First plant in BASF Zhanjiang Verbund site becomes operational with €10 billion investment

The first plant at the BASF Zhanjiang Verbund site was brought formally on stream on September 6, 2022 in China. 

A total investment of €10 billion was made on BASF’s first wholly owned, independently built and operated project in the heavy chemical industry at the Zhanjiang Verbund site in China. The project began in November 2019, the first plant began operations on September 6, 2022, when Phase I of the project was brought to full-scale construction, including the annual 1-million-ton ethylene and downstream processing units. 

This is BASF’s largest investment to date, and upon completion, the site will become BASF’s third-largest integrated chemical production site worldwide, following Ludwigshafen of Germany and Antwerp of Belgium. It is expected to set an example for sustainable production in China and the world.

The operation of the first plant at the BASF Zhanjiang Verbund site is of great significance to deepening economic and trade cooperation between China and Germany, which is also a reflection of the joint efforts to cope with the impact of COVID-19 to maintain the security and stability of the petrochemical supply chain. 

The project will produce annually 60,000 tons of modified engineering plastics to fulfill the needs of customers in the Asia-Pacific region in automotive and electronic industry sectors, which indicate that 60% of the increases in the global chemical demand in the 10 years ahead may come from China.