BASF says vitamin production down until 2025

BASF has announced a lengthy interruption of the supply of vitamins A and E and various carotenoids as a result the recent explosion and fire at its vast Ludwigshafen plant in Germany. 

On Wednesday, Aug. 21, BASF said it did not expect the production of Vitamin A and Vitamin E to resume before January 2025, and that it would take until sometime in the spring for production to be back to pre-incident levels. 

The explosion happened on July 29. No one was killed in the incident, though the southern area of the vast plant was severely damaged. 

On Aug. 7, the German chemical giant had already declared force majeure on contracts related to various vitamin A, vitamin E and carotenoid products as well as some of the aroma chemicals manufactured at the site. 

By Aug. 16, the company announced it had already begun allocating volumes for selected customers of those ingredients. 

In addition to reconstruction work that will need to take place, the explosion and fire required a lengthy remediation due to the huge amount of water used to fight the fire. 

World’s largest chemical plant 

The Ludwigshafen plant, located on the Rhine River not far from Frankfurt, is billed as the world’s largest integrated chemical plant. The company, originally known as the “Badische Analin & Sodafabrik,” has been producing chemicals at the Ludwigshafen site for 160 years.  

The modern factory manufactures feed-grade vitamin A 1000 and vitamin E oil, as well as various human nutrition, animal nutrition and cosmetic ingredients. 

Experts contacted by Natural Products Insider at the time of the original disruption said the effect for most companies doing business in the human nutrition space was likely to be small. 

The plant suffered an explosion and fire in 2017 that also affected the global supply of vitamins A and E. Following that incident, the company had also declared force majeure on contracts related to those ingredients. 

The 2017 fire reportedly sent vitamin A and vitamin E prices soaring as fewer supply alternatives for the affected ingredients were available at that time. 

But the market has changed in the meantime.  

There seems to be ample capacity of vitamins A and E in today’s market, according to Steve Hanson, a long-time industry consultant and principal at the firm Nutrisocial.   

“What we would see is that Chinese suppliers would just pick up the shortfalls,” he explained. “They have the ability to ramp up their production pretty quickly.”