The chemical industry in the world in 2015

The world chemical industry has undergone major changes in the past decade.

Old company names, such as Hoechst ,Huls ,Union Carbide ,Nobel ,Elf , Rhone Poulenc, Stauffer,Diamond Shamrock,Texas Gulf,Big Three Industries,National Distillers, and Pennwalt have disappeared in order to be replaced by new companies with names picked by public relations experts. For example: Aventis Clariant ,Novartis ,Syngenta ,Astra Zeneca ,Wyeth , Yara ,and ChemFirst. A few of these new names have already disappeared as these companies were swallowed by other companies.

Companies with only chemicals productions have become fewer. Particular exceptions are the two industry giants: Dow and BASF.

Some of the purchases, sales and restructuring were for the realistic purpose of concentrating in fewer businesses, but with a larger market share. Some were due to pressure by the stock market which does not care what a company is doing (except in advance of quarterly reports), as long as it gets headlines.

Many of the purchases and sales were due to managers who have no interest in production or sales but in the value of shares, and who get bonuses in the share go up but not for the company achievements. Most sales are not for cash but by exchange of shares.

Purchases and sales were sometimes at low prices and sometimes at high prices, far from the real value of the companies, particularly in the biotech area, where the behavior of the managers and the stock market was reminiscent of the High Tech stocks bubble.

An extreme example is DuPont, which has changed directions a number of times, getting in and out of businesses, reorganized every few years, buying its own shares instead of investing the money in new production, ending after 12 years as a specialties company smaller than the commodities company it used to be.

Another poor example was Monsanto, once known for developing many new processes, which started buying and selling companies, and was itself bought and then regurgitated.

The large number of mergers has reduced the number of large companies reported by C&EN from 100 to 75.

Managements continued to develop more buzzwords than new ideas.

The top buzzwords for 2015 were:

  1. Crowdfund/Crowdsource
  2. Synergize
  3. Freemium
  4. Osmosis marketing
  5. Digital nomads
  6. Big data
  7. Knowledge economy
  8. Skills transfer
  9. Cross-platform
  10. Authority marketing
  11. Social looping
  12. Gamification
  13. Retail curation
  14. Network virtualization
  15. Intellectual capital
  16. Right-sizing
  17. Convergence
  18. Personal branding
  19. HTML5
  20. Value-added
  21. Consumerization
  22. Niche
  23. Streamlined
  24. Incentivize
  25. Localization
  26. פיתוח בר קימה

The top 50 chemical companies

Top Chemical Companies 1991 – 2014 Arranged in the 2006 order
Company 2014 2013 2012 2011 2009 2007 2006 2005 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1994 1993 1992 1991
BASF  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2
Dow 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 3 4 4 4 5 6 6 6
Shell 12 5 4 8 3 3 3 8 7 7 8 7 5 6 7 8 8 7
Exxon 5 6 6 4 5 5 4 4 6 6 6 4 5*** 8 8 11 7 7 11
Inneos 9 10 12 12 4 4 5 17 42 40 42 42 –
DuPont 8 9 9 7 6 8 6 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 5 5
Sinopec 3 2 3 3 3 6 7 7 13 14 26 –
Formosa Plas 6 7 7 6 7 10 9 11 16 31 30 43 47 46 42 –
Bayer 10 12 11 11 12 12 10 8 4 5 4 5 3 3 3 4 4 4 4
SABIC 4 4 5 5 9 7 11 10 12 13 18 22 32 30 20 38 –
Lyondell 7 8 8 8 11 14 12 12 49 47 50 47 48 –
Mitsubishi 11 11 10 9 14 12 13 13 9 17 14 13 23 31 17 13 15 17 17
Mitsui 19 17 19 14 18 16 14 15 15 12 13 14 15 43 na 40 40 – –
Evonik## 20 21 21 17 16 15 15 14 10 9 8 7 9*** 35 38 27 48 47 46
BP 48 16 7 8 9 10 10 11 31 22 28 21 16
AkzoNobel 16 14 14 13 13 17 17 18 11 10 11 11 8 19 9 16 13* 14 18
Sumitomo 18 19 15 19 17 19 18 19 20 19 20 12 13 13 12 19 21 25 19
Air Liquide 15 15 16 18 15 18 19 20 19 18 22 26 21 25 29 33 33 18 26
Chevron 27 27 27 24 32 23 20 22 23 30 23 19# 50 47 50 50 –
Torray 21 22 20 21 20 25 21 21 31 28 25 24 21 21 23 29 30
Linde 17 18 23 22 21 22 26 –
Shin-Etsu 31 29 28 27 26 26 22 25 22 22 37 –
Huntsman 32 33 33 33 36 31 23 16 24 20 12 15 14 29 32 46 – – –
DSM 28 28 30 28 24 24 24 26 25 27 19 20 22 12 23 26 27 24 20
LG Chem 13 13 13 15 19 28 26 50 45 –
Reliance 22 20 18 20 22 21 27 39 28 28 39 31 37 45 49 –
Solvay 25 26 22 31 34 32 28 32 39 42 41 38 19 26 26 23 26 15 21
PPG 24 25 25 25 23 27 30 30 26 25 24 24 29 –
DIC### 42 45 40 38 33 35 31 27 17 15 15 18 20 17 13 32 31 35 35
Lanxess 35 34 31 29 38 37 32 28 –
AshaiKasei 36 32 29 39 28 40 34 31 36 35 35 36 na 41 36 10 11 13 13
Praxair 29 30 32 32 29 24 35 35 37 37 36 41 39 32 34
Air Products 38 40 39 39 35 38 37 34 31 38 29 37 38 36 40 48 50 47
Yara 23 24 24 23 27 29 38 36 –
Eastman 39 41 43 50 49 47 39 38 34 33 33 35 41 34 35 36 36 34 37
Arkema 43 42 42 45 41 43 41 –
Borealis 34 35 38 37 40 39 42 46 47 46 48 44 48 –
Sasol 37 37 36 34 30 41 43 42 33 45 –
Syngenta 33 36 37 35 31 44 48 44 38 36 32 23 –
Braskem 14 16 17 16 37 36 50 –
Mosaic 41 38 35 36 25 34
SK innovation 30 31 34 26
Lotte 26 23 26 26
Tosoh 44 43 41 43 39
PTT 40 39
Siam Cement 46
Indorama 47 47
Hanwha Chem 45
Ecolab 49
JohnsonMathey 50
TotalFinaElf 46 47 10 10 9 8 5 5 4 5 5 6 –
ENI 48 45 42 44 33 33 33 41 43 46 34 43 33 28 15 14 11 8
Styrolution 44 46 40
Showa Denko 50 47 45 49 –
Potash Corp 44 41
 Momentive  49 46
Alpek 48 49
Clariant 44 42 45 47 41 29 26 27 30 24 15 14 –
 Rhodia  43 46 49 43 30 23 21 24 27 –
 Hitachi  50
 Asahi Kasei 30
 Honam 48
Merck KGaA 46
Dow Corning 47
Celanese 48 50 45 45 44 44 44 44 40 – – – – – –
Rohm & Haas@ 42 40 37 35 39 40 32 31 44 44 43 41 45 45
Basell @@ 13 16 24 –
Petrochina 48 46 48 48 –
ICI @@@ 30 29 23 14 11 10 9 6 6 7 6 5 3 1
Gen-Electric 44 40 18 16 17 16 18 14 18 18 20 27 24
BOC 29 32 24 35 34 34 27 24 30 30 23 29
Ciba 47 43 41 45 39 26 21 30 8 9 10 10
Teijin 49 46 32 28 –
Norsk Hydro 40 21 39 40 35 45 15 24 25 28 25
Monsanto 50 47 49 33 40 – 17 18 19 15
Henkel 17 21 16 18 22 20 22 22 28
Aventis 43 33 17 – – – – – –
UnionCarbide 28 23 19 25 24 26 22
Total 11 28 na 42 42 38 39
ElfAquitainea 12 10 10 9 10 12 12
Novartis 36 20 27 – – – –
Rhone-Poulenc 9 11 12 12 9 9
Hoechst 7 5 1 1 2 3
Veba(Huls) 16 16 14 17 16 14
Bekisui Chem 20 23 5
Nobel 46 48

Degussa-Huls***
ExxonMobil **
Akzo-Nobel *
Chevron-Phillips #
Degussa became Evonik in 2007##
Dainippon became DIC in 2007###
Rohm&Haas_was bought by Dow in 2008@
Basell was bought by Lyondel@@
ICI was bought by Akzonobel @@@