BASF last Monday announced the construction of a new plant for polyalkylene glycol (PAG)-based lubricants at its Ludwigshafen site. The manufacturing facility will start operations by the beginning of 2016 and produce both PAG lubricant base stocks and formulated blends.

With this double-digit million euro investment BASF continues to support the global growth of synthetic lubricant formulators who use these BASF products in their final formulated lubricants. Through the integration in BASF’s largest Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, Germany, the new production unit will have full backward integration into all key raw materials including ethylene oxide and propylene oxide.

The new facility will increase security of supply for BASF’s customers in the lubricant industry. “With the new plant we are consequently following our strategic path as a world-class leading supplier for synthetic lubricant solutions,” said Martin Widmann, Senior Vice President of BASF’s business unit Fuel and Lubricant Solutions. “The investment represents another significant step for us as well as our customers.”

PAG base stocks are used, for example, in finished lubricants for gear oils or compressor oils as well as in metalworking applications or fire-resistant hydraulic fluids.

BASF's global business unit Fuel and Lubricant Solutions is part of BASF's Performance Chemicals division. Offerings cover fuel performance packages, refinery additives, polyisobutenes, engine coolants (Glysantin® brand) and brake fluids. Through the recent acquisitions, Fuel and Lubricant Solutions has further extended its value chain, as well as formulation and application expertise to lubricant additives, compounded lubricants, synthetic base stocks and components for metalworking fluids. The business unit has its main facilities in Ludwigshafen, Germany; Cincinnati and Florham Park, New Jersey in the United States; Nanjing and Shanghai, China, as well as Sao Paulo, Brazil. Research and development is mainly driven out of Ludwigshafen, Tarrytown, New York and Shanghai.

BASF had sales of about €74 (US$101) billion in 2013 and over 112,000 employees as of the end of the year.