The BASF site in Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, is the world’s largest chemical complex operated by a single company. At the edge of the Rhine, more than 250 meters wide at this point, a metal forest stretches as far as the eye can see. It is a gigantic network of gray pipes, bent, tightly interwoven, carried by kilometers of scaffolding. Here, all the chemical installations are interconnected to make the best use of energy.
Overlooking this interlacing, dozens of distillation columns give the whole space the look of Manhattan. For a hundred and fifty years, the Rhine chemical complex has been a central and indispensable part of German industrial power. In Ludwigshafen, in these pipes, the material is domesticated day and night. The heart of the complex are two huge installations, called “steamcracker”, which carry out one of the main operations in petrochemicals.
“Hydrocarbons are subjected to heat and water vapor to break them down into basic chemical compounds, which will then be retransformed”, explains the BASF spokesperson accompanying us. The process requires very large quantities of heat, produced from the gas, which in chemistry is both energy and raw material. On the site, 220,000 chemical products are manufactured, materials as varied as they are essential to our daily lives: basic compounds for pharmaceuticals, washing agents for cleaning products and cosmetics, plastics – those for packaging, bumpers, synthetic textiles, insulation – glues, machine lubricants, bodywork paint, ammonia for fertilizers.
Economists divided
Since European industry is very intertwined, almost all European branches, including the French automotive, food and cosmetics industries, directly or indirectly receive products made in Ludwigshafen. For the past few days, the site has been on high alert. At the end of March, faced with Russia’s request to be paid in rubles for its hydrocarbon deliveries, the Ministry of the Economy triggered level 1 of the “gas emergency plan”, the first step towards possible rationing. The director of the Ludwigshafen complex, Uwe Liebelt, has been preparing since in case activity has to be reduced due to a lack of gas. According to his calculations, if the gas supply were reduced by 30%, the activity could be maintained at the technical minimum. Customer supplies would be reduced accordingly.
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