German chemical giant BASF plans to invest in a new world-class neopentyl glycol (NPG) plant with an annual capacity of 80,000 metric tons at its Zhanjiang Verbund site in China. The new plant is expected to come on stream in the fourth quarter of 2025 and will increase BASF's global NPG capacity from 255,000 metric tons to 335,000 metric tons per year, strengthening BASF's leading position as a global NPG manufacturer.
The first set of BASF Zhanjiang integrated base will be built in 2020. On July 19, 2022, BASF announced the full progress of the project, which will focus on the construction of the core of the integrated site, including a steam cracker and several downstream units, and is scheduled to start up by the end of 2025, thus further supporting BASF's continued business growth in China. Subsequent phases of the project will see the expansion of more downstream units for the production of diversified products, with operations scheduled to begin in 2028. The entire integrated base will be built in stages and is scheduled to be completed by 2030.
On September 6, the first unit of the BASF Zhanjiang Integrated Base was officially put into operation. Since then, BASF will add 60,000 tons of modified engineering plastics per year to the Chinese market, raising the total production capacity of this product in the Asia-Pacific region to 420,000 tons from 2023.