BASF Verbund

Our unique Verbund concept is one of BASF’s greatest strengths. The driving principle of the Verbund concept is to add value through the efficient use of resources. At our Verbund sites, production plants, energy and material flows, logistics, and site infrastructure are all integrated.

BASF currently operates six Verbund sites worldwide: two in Europe, two in North America and two in Asia. Our Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, Germany, is the world’s largest chemical complex owned by a single company that was developed as an integrated network. We are building a seventh Verbund site in Zhanjiang, in the Chinese province of Guangdong.

BASF Verbund sites worldwide

The Verbund system creates efficient value chains that extend from basic chemicals all the way to consumer products. In this system, chemical processes make use of energy more efficiently, achieve higher product yields and conserve resources. By-products of one process are used as starting materials for other processes. This saves raw materials and energy, avoids emissions, lowers logistics costs and leverages synergies. BASF operates 233 additional production sites worldwide, but the six Verbund sites produce more than 50% of our volumes. This is a testament to the importance and strength of the Verbund concept within BASF.

The Verbund creates opportunities to reduce emissions, waste and resource consumption. Around half of the Verbund advantages stem from wastewater, steam and electricity savings compared to BASF’s non-Verbund sites as well as compared to publicly available data on industry cost averages. The remaining 50% of the savings are achieved in logistics and material handling due to our chemical integration (using pipelines instead of filling and transporting via truck/railway/ship). These benefits make the Verbund sites our most efficient sites. Value chains in integrated Verbund structures can be steered efficiently to conserve resources and reduce CO₂ emissions.

In 2022, we covered more than 54% of BASF Group’s electricity demand with our own gas and steam turbines in our highly efficient combined heat and power plants. Compared with separate generation of steam and electricity, we saved 12.0 million MWh of fossil fuels in 2022 and avoided 2.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions. In 2022, internally generated power in the BASF Group had a carbon footprint of around 0.25 metric tons of CO₂ per MWh of electricity and was below the national grid factor at most BASF Group locations.

The Verbund system is also key to the carbon-optimized supply of energy at our sites: Waste heat from one plant’s production process is used as energy in other plants. The Verbund saved around 19.0 million MWh in 2022, which translates to 3.8 million metric tons less CO₂ released into the environment.

With combined power and steam generation as well as our optimized Energy Verbund, we were thus able to avoid a total of 6.2 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2022.

The Verbund has several additional dimensions that all contribute across the businesses to strengthen BASF’s portfolio and to create value. By managing our value chains, we ensure the competitive and flexible supply of key raw materials and products to all segments. We have strong technological competence in production processes as well as in research, product development and our customers’ applications. This know-how is available in our operating divisions and through our Group Research division. Digitalization is an integral part of our business, and we harvest the benefits of the vast amount of data generated across BASF. Using and connecting this data intelligently, we can increase the efficiency of our processes and provide many new opportunities to create additional value for our customers. By combining the specific expertise of each business into a broad offering, we want to be the preferred supplier for our customers in the different markets.

Verbund

Production

6.2 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions avoided globally in 2022
Integration enables drop-in solutions for bio-based and recycled feedstock for low-carbon products

Value Chains

Ensure competitive supply of key raw materials and products to all segments while avoiding CO₂ emissions

Technologies

Leverage technological advantages and innovation across all segments
Unique expertise in developing and integrating new, low-emission technologies

Digitalization

Harvest the advantages offered by digitalization across BASF, for example, in R&D and by calculating product carbon footprints

Markets

Create customer relevance through size and broad portfolio

Examples from our Technology Verbund

Expertise in catalysis

Developing and using chemical catalysts that accelerate and increase the efficiency of chemical reactions has been a core competence of BASF since the first large-scale synthesis of ammonia in 1913. Today, catalysis is employed in almost every value chain at BASF. Catalysts are required to make more than 90% of our products in an efficient and sustainable way.

BASF is the global leader in catalyst production for chemical processes and refinery applications. The know-how to develop, manufacture and employ catalysts for these different applications is bundled in the Group Research division, creating significant synergies across the company. For example, the principles by which carriers and precious metals interact to eliminate impurities in raw materials also apply to emissions catalysts that destroy compounds such as nitrous oxides in the cleanup of industrial off-gases.

In the future, due to an increasing focus on carbon emissions and waste recycling, even more robust catalysts will be needed to process, for instance, bio-based raw materials and plastic waste. With our broad experience across many chemical value chains, BASF’s catalyst R&D is well equipped to tackle these challenges.

White biotechnology and fermentation technologies

Future growth in many of our markets will be driven by trends like growing consumer demand for natural and organic ingredients and their traceability. As innovation will be the key driver here, we are working on approaches beyond the existing solutions with research and development in white biotechnology and fermentation technologies.

Despite its complexity, the Production Verbund can respond flexibly to fluctuating demand and changing markets. The Verbund Simulator is a proprietary tool that helps us optimize the Verbund. Within the Verbund, each business unit must create value for BASF. Therefore, we apply an internal market-based transfer pricing system that avoids cross-subsidization and provides transparency as we actively manage and optimize our value chains.

The flexibility that BASF has in adapting its Verbund structures is demonstrated by the measures to improve competitiveness that were announced on February 24, 2023: We will close plants in the TDI complex and in the ammonia and adipic acid value chains in Ludwigshafen while ensuring the profitability of downstream businesses. The planned measures will reduce fixed costs by more than €200 million per year when implemented by the end of 2026.