BASFs performance products segment reported lower income from operations during the second quarter, while income from operations was up for its chemicals segment, compared to year-earlier results.
The companys performance products segment posted 363 million (U.S. $427 million) in income from operations in the second quarter, down 27 percent. The chemicals segment was up 144 percent at 1.1 billion, which the company attributed primarily to higher margins in its monomers and petrochemicals divisions.
Sales in the performance products segment to third parties increased 4 percent to 4.1 billion. This was largely attributable to price increases, through which we were only partly able to compensate for higher raw material prices, the company said in its half-year financial report.
Under that segment, the performance chemicals divisions products include antioxidants, polyisobutene, lubricant additives and base stocks, compounds for metalworking fluids and compounded lubricants, among others. In May 2016, BASF began making polyalkylene glycol-based base stocks and industrial lubricants at its new facility in Germany.
In the second quarter, sales of performance chemicals to third parties increased 2 percent to 980 million. This was largely thanks to a recovery in demand for oilfield chemicals as well as for lubricants and additives in North America, the company stated.
Sales for BASFs chemicals segment to third parties reached 4 billion, up 25 percent from a year earlier. Under the segment, examples of products in the intermediates line include specialty amines; alkanolamines, which can be used in additives that lower the pour point of lubricating oils; and neopentyl glycol, which is used in synthetic lubricants.
In the second quarter, sales of intermediates to third parties reached 757 million, up 11 percent. We achieved higher volumes of amines in addition to polyalcohols and acids, the company noted.