BASF Inaugurates $10B Verbund Site in China
BASF, headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany, officially inaugurated its Zhanjiang Verbund site in Guangdong Province, China on March 26, completing a world-scale integrated chemical production facility at a final investment of approximately €8.7 billion (approximately $10 billion USD) — on schedule and under the original budget.
The site covers approximately four square kilometers and employs more than 2,000 people. According to BASF, 18 plants and 32 production lines are now operational, producing more than 70 products spanning basic chemicals, intermediates and specialty chemicals for the transportation, consumer goods, electronics, home care and personal care industries.
The site includes a flex-feed steam cracker with a capacity of 1 million tons of ethylene per year, designed to process multiple feedstock types, including naphtha and butane. According to BASF, it is the first steam cracker in the world equipped with main compressors powered entirely by renewable energy. The site's full electricity supply is covered through long-term green power purchase agreements and investments in an offshore wind farm.
Through Verbund integration, process innovations and renewable energy use, BASF said the site can reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 50% compared with a conventional petrochemical facility.
"It sets new benchmarks for sustainable chemical production in China and worldwide," Stephan Kothrade, BASF CTO, Asia Pacific region, said in a press statement.
The Zhanjiang site is BASF's seventh Verbund site globally and its third largest, after Ludwigshafen and Antwerp, Belgium. The majority of products manufactured at the site will serve customers in China, in line with what BASF describes as its "local-for-local" strategy. BASF announced the project in 2018 and laid the foundation stone the following year. The first production plant, for engineering plastics, came online in 2022, followed by a thermoplastic polyurethane plant in 2024 and an acrylics complex in 2025. Steam cracker operations began at the turn of 2025 and 2026.
The Zhanjiang inauguration follows other recent manufacturing milestones for BASF. Earlier this month, the company started up an industrial-scale production plant for 3D-printed catalysts at its Ludwigshafen site, using additive manufacturing technology.