List of largest chemical producers is a topic that has generated a lot of debate in recent years. As society advances, this issue becomes increasingly relevant and polarizing, generating conflicting opinions in different sectors. This article seeks to analyze List of largest chemical producers in depth, exploring its different facets and providing objective and updated information on the topic. Through a comprehensive approach, it is intended to offer the reader a complete and balanced view of List of largest chemical producers, thus allowing a broader and enriching understanding of the issue at hand.
Chemical & Engineering News publishes an annual list of the world's largest chemical producers by sales, excluding formulated products such as pharmaceutical drugs and coatings. In 2018, sales of the top fifty companies amounted to US$951,000,000,000, an increase of 11.8% compared to the top fifty producers of 2017. The American Chemistry Council estimated that global chemical sales in 2014 rose by 3.7% to US$5,389,000,000,000.
In 2018, Forty-eight of the companies on the list disclosed chemical profits, which totaled US$110,100,000,000, an increase of 1.3% from 2017. The average profit margin for chemical operations for these companies was 9.6%.
A.^ Some figures converted at 2018 average exchange rates of US$1.00 = R$3.6513 Brazilian, RMB 6.609, €0.8462, ₹67.16, ¥110.1, ₩1,099.29, SRls 3.75, R 13.2255, SFr 0.9784, NT$30.129, and ฿32.303.
C.^ Sales include a significant amount of non-chemical products.
D.^ Chemical sales less administrative expenses and cost of sales.
Largest companies since 1988
Since Chemical & Engineering News began keeping records in 1989, BASF has been the world's largest chemical producer by annual sales more frequently than any other company. The other companies that have headed the list are Dow Chemical, DowDuPont (which broke up into Dow, a new DuPont, and Corteva Agriscience in 2019), Hoechst (which merged with Rhône-Poulenc in 1999 and is now a subsidiary of Sanofi), ICI (acquired by AkzoNobel in 2008) and Bayer.
Year
Company
Chemical sales USD millions
Source
1988
Bayer
22,694
1989
BASF
17,122
1990
BASF
18,520
1991
ICI
18,127
1992
BASF
22,883
1993
Hoechst
16,682
1994
Hoechst
19,702
1995
BASF
22,030
1996
BASF
26,519
1997
BASF
27,047
1998
BASF
27,740
1999
BASF
31,250
2000
BASF
30,791
2001
Dow Chemical
27,805
2002
Dow Chemical
27,609
2003
Dow Chemical
32,632
2004
Dow Chemical
40,161
2005
Dow Chemical
46,307
2006
BASF
49,516
2007
BASF
65,037
2008
BASF
70,485
2009
BASF
54,817
2010
BASF
70,391
2011
BASF
85,603
2012
BASF
79,760
2013
BASF
78,615
2014
BASF
78,698
2015
BASF
63,749
2016
BASF
60,653
2017
BASF
69,195
2018
DowDuPont
85,977
2019
BASF
66,400
2020
BASF
67,500
2021
BASF
92,982
A.^ Foreign currencies converted to USD using average exchange rates of that year.
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