BASF has announced that it will carry out turnarounds of key world-scale plants as part of maintenance processes for regulatory and routine inspections in 2006. The aim of the turnarounds is to carry out technical inspections, maintain equipment, perform cleaning work and exchange used catalysts. In addition, the opportunity will be used to further improve the performance and reliability of the plants. At the same time, a number of downstream plants will also undergo scheduled inspections.

The turnarounds are expected to reduce the Chemicals segment’s EBIT by approximately €100 million in 2006. A large share of this amount will be booked in the first half of the year and in the Petrochemicals division. Comparable turnarounds of world-scale plants were not carried out within the Chemicals segment in 2005.

Major turnarounds in 2006 include the propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant in Tarragona, Spain, in January and February. The steam cracker and the butadiene extraction facility in Port Arthur, Texas, will be overhauled in March and April. The steam cracker is a joint venture between BASF and Total, and the butadiene extraction facility is a joint venture between BASF, Total and Shell. The syngas and oxo-alcohols plants in Nanjing, China, will be shut down in March and April, while one of BASF’s two crackers in Ludwigshafen, including downstream plants, will also undergo inspections in April and May.

BASF has confirmed that it will continue to provide its customers with secure supplies of its chemicals during the turnaround process.