BASF has accelerated its strategic layout in China with frequent major moves in recent years, covering production commissioning, capacity expansion, and forward-looking industrial deployment. The continuous investment and technological upgrading further consolidate BASF’s leading position in China’s polyurethane, coatings and fine chemical markets.
The Shanghai Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau has publicly accepted and reviewed the environmental impact report for the MDI capacity expansion project of Shanghai BASF Polyurethane Co., Ltd. (SBPC). With a total investment of RMB 450 million, the expansion project will be constructed within the existing SBPC plant and implemented in two phases.
The first phase is scheduled to start construction in May 2025 and complete commissioning in June 2025. The second phase will begin construction in November 2027 and finish commissioning in January 2028. The expansion is driven by tight market supply, as the current crude MDI capacity can no longer meet market demand in the surrounding regions.
To lift output efficiency, BASF will renovate bottleneck equipment and extend the annual operating hours of key units including nitric acid, nitrobenzene/aniline, and MDA/crude MDI plants from 7,500 hours to 8,000 hours per year, achieving effective capacity improvement.
Upon completion, the project will add annual capacity of 98,949 tons for nitric acid, 80,000 tons for nitrobenzene, 50,000 tons for aniline, 128,000 tons for MDA, and 161,760 tons for crude MDI. The upgraded full capacity will reach 514,635 tons/year for nitric acid, 320,000 tons/year for nitrobenzene, 230,000 tons/year for aniline, 320,000 tons/year for MDA, and 401,760 tons/year for crude MDI.
The capacities of DNT (259,907 tons/year), TDI (220,000 tons/year) and MMDI (300,000 tons/year) production lines will remain unchanged. The expansion relies mainly on existing process equipment with partial retrofitting, with only a small number of new devices added in the MDA/crude MDI zone.
In December 2024, BASF’s Chongqing polyurethane MDI optimization project entered trial operation. The Chongqing base lifted its MDI capacity from 400,000 tons/year to 530,000 tons/year. Currently, BASF’s global total MDI capacity reaches 2.07 million tons per year, distributed across global key production bases: 530,000 tons in Chongqing (China), 240,000 tons in Shanghai (China), 250,000 tons in Yeosu (South Korea), 650,000 tons in Antwerp (Belgium), and 400,000 tons in Geismar (USA).
BASF has officially completed two key upgrading projects in Shanghai: the automotive coatings capacity expansion project and the automated tank farm technical renovation project. Driven by the rapidly rising market share of water-based automotive coatings, BASF launched new capacity expansion for electrophoretic color paste and water-based topcoat to meet growing downstream market demand.
The company added three new production units for electrophoretic color paste and optimized batch production processes to shorten production cycles. The expansion delivers an additional annual electrophoretic color paste capacity of 12,000 tons. Supported by equipment upgrading and process optimization, the water-based topcoat capacity increases by 7,000 tons per year, lifting the total water-based topcoat capacity to 42,000 tons annually. Meanwhile, the project adds an annual IBC barrel cleaning capacity of 5,000 units to support standardized and intelligent production operation.
BASF Shanghai Coatings operates two production sites in Shanghai: Minhang Plant and Caojing Plant.
TheMinhang Plant owns a total annual capacity of 112,400 tons, including 35,000 tons of water-based topcoat, 500 tons of water-based intermediate coat, 37,500 tons of diluent, 9,400 tons of solvent-based topcoat, 5,000 tons of solvent-based intermediate coat, and 25,000 tons of varnish.
The Caojing Plant achieves a total annual capacity of 131,400 tons, covering 12,000 tons of electrophoretic color paste, 42,000 tons of water-based topcoat, 500 tons of water-based intermediate coat, 9,400 tons of solvent-based topcoat, 5,000 tons of solvent-based intermediate coat, 25,000 tons of varnish, 37,500 tons of diluent, and 3,500 tons of color paste intermediates.
On February 5, Haryono Lim, President of BASF Asia Major Projects, announced at the Guangdong High-Quality Development Conference that the core units of the BASF Zhanjiang Integrated Base are under steady construction and are scheduled to be fully commissioned by the end of 2025. The project marks a critical milestone of BASF’s long-term investment in China and demonstrates the efficient construction speed of Guangdong’s industrial infrastructure.
The Zhanjiang integrated complex is anchored by a 1 million tons/year ethylene steam cracker, supporting a complete cluster of downstream fine chemical units. The product portfolio serves multiple high-end industries including automotive, construction, high-speed rail, electronics and electrical appliances, food packaging, personal and home care, aerospace and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
The complete industrial layout includes 66/83/20 KT/A EO/EG/refined EO units, 21.5 KT/A non-ionic surfactant units, 500 KT/A polyethylene units, 2×190 KT/A glacial acrylic acid units, 375 KT/A butyl acrylate units, 100 KT/A isooctyl acrylate units, 500 KT/A 2-EH units, 50,000 Nm³/h syngas units, 80 KT/A neopentyl glycol units, 110 KT/A formaldehyde units, and 40 KT/A citral units, together with full sets of supporting utilities and auxiliary facilities.
Using naphtha and n-butane as core raw materials, the base produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylene, cracked fuel oil, isobutene and a wide range of downstream high-value chemical products.
Officially launched in November 2019 after being announced in July 2018, the BASF Zhanjiang Integrated Base represents BASF’s largest single investment project worldwide, with a total investment of approximately 10 billion euros. Fully independently constructed and operated by BASF, the complex will become the company’s third-largest global production base upon full completion, only after the Ludwigshafen base in Germany and the Antwerp base in Belgium.
Early commissioning has been realized for phased units: the first production line started operation in September 2022, and the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) unit was officially commissioned in January 2024, effectively meeting the booming market demand in South China and the broader Asian market.
