BASF CEO Kurt Bock (Kurt Bock) said at the company's annual results press conference that in the next few months, BASF will start the TDI installation in Ludwigshafen. The plant plans to increase production in March and April, but Bok declined to disclose the specific date when the plant will run at full capacity.

He said: “We are replacing the reactor, which is the spare reactor that we put into use at the plant last year. Now, we are going to install a new reactor, which is currently being installed. This will further increase BASF’s production capacity.”

He added: “Operating the TDI plant in Ludwigshafen is full of challenges. Sometimes things happen completely beyond our expectations. For example, the reactor failed last year, although many tests were carried out before that. To overcome these Challenge, our team has made great efforts."

The plant has a production capacity of 300,000 tons per year. Its construction was previously delayed for one year and then started in 2015.

He said: "Frankly speaking, we have not lost market share. The real situation is quite the opposite. Similarly, our profits are not lower than industry competitors. We have just launched an MDI factory in Shanghai as planned and have officially started production. "

He said: "Looking forward to 2018, I expect that market demand will remain stable, while production load will slightly decline. We also need to observe how this will affect pricing." Bok also said that the production problems of competitors will also be affected. Pricing has an impact. He said: "Due to a variety of reasons, the overall supply and demand are out of balance.

Although the potential demand is large, external factors will affect our production. For example, in Louisiana, the temperature was unexpectedly extremely low. The supply problems of external suppliers caused us to reduce the production load of some factories. These are all unforeseen factors. "

Regarding the company's supply of unqualified TDI to the European market in the third quarter of 2017, Bock said: “We are discussing with our direct and indirect customers how to solve these problems.” This quality issue caused production interruptions for multiple companies. Ricksell specifically mentioned that supply problems have reduced the profits of its mattress division.

He added: "It is important that we prove that our TDI products are not speculative products, and that dichlorobenzene has no negative impact on the performance or safety of the products."

(Source: HC Chemical Network)