The Glues and Impregnating Resins business unit takes full advantage of this fact, not only making those glues and resins, but also selling the raw material components such as ammonia, urea and melamine to other group production facilities, as well as to outside customers. BASF’s annual capacities in Ludwigshafen amount to Ammonia: 875kt, Urea: 545kt, Melamine: 65kt, Methanol: 450kt, FA: 500kt, Glues and resins: 750kt. "Unlike our competitors, we have the entire chemical ‘tool box’ in BASF and it is up to us to make something that is useful to all our customers," said Mr Gutting. Making the most of an integrated approach to manufacturing, research and overall management philosophy, together with the maximum integration of infrastructure, processes, energy and waste management, is known as ‘Verbund’, a German word meaning ‘linked’ or ‘integrated’ to the maximum degree.
Verbund, says BASF, provides competitive advantages because it represents more than simple integration. "It represents entire interlocking value chains, from chemical building blocks produced primarily for BASF use to cyclically resilient speciality and fine chemicals that offer higher returns," says the company brochure. "Our size enables us to be energy-efficient and to have sustainable production," continued Mr Gutting. "For instance, all our units can transfer materials without the use of trucks, excess energy produced in one unit can be utilised by others and the ‘waste’ from one production line can be the raw material for others."
The segments, or clusters, of the BASF operations comprise oil and gas, agricultural products, performance products, plastics and chemicals.
Mr Gutting’s unit comes under ‘chemicals’, and that segment accounted for 22% of total company sales in 2006.
A small change in the company logo a couple of years ago was designed to emphasise the company’s total commitment to chemicals, thus the words ‘The Chemical Company’ became part of that logo. "We want everyone to understand and know what it is that we do," said Mr Gutting.
"Glues and impregnating resins is a core business for BASF, not only because of the raw materials we produce but also because of the business itself. We are continually investing in R&D to develop products further and looking for and analysing investment possibilities," he said.
Mr Gutting went on to say that the products of his business unit can be divided into two areas: resins to impregnate papers; and glues as adhesives for wood based products, such as particleboards.
"The main part of the business is particle glues, either reinforced with melamine or non-reinforced, such as urea formaldehyde (UF). The UF glues were developed in the late 1920s and patented as Kaurit in 1929. When reinforced with melamine, they are known as Kauramin.
The main uses for the particle glues are furniture and construction, particleboard, OSB and MDF/HDF.
Impregnating resins are mainly for decorative papers and foils, with two main downstream applications: laminates and furniture.
The company does produce powder glues (the same chemical base but without the water) although this is not a major growing business in western Europe, said the director. Powder glues are easier to transport over long distances and more climatically stable, but are more costly to produce.
Surface glues are also offered for construction components such as LVL and glue-lam.
The company does not offer phenolic glues such as phenol formaldehyde (PF) but only in combination with melamine such as in melamine urea phenol formaldehyde (MUPF) resins.
Another BASF company, Elastogran, produces MDI (diphenylmethane diisocyanate) and its derivative, pMDI, resins, which it mainly supplies to the OSB industry. Elastogran is also part of that ‘Verbund’ principle.
The company’s mass coloured MDF, that is, MDF which is homogeneously coloured throughout, is another example of ‘verbund’, said Mr Gutting. It was developed in a strategic partnership with Glunz (a Sonae group company). BASF is the patent owner and Glunz sells the MDF under the Topan Colour brand. "This brought different aspects of BASF together and is an ideal example of ‘Verbund’."
The panel industry has changed dramatically in a short period of time, as Mr Gutting acknowledged.
"There have been enormous strides in throughput and the development of panels in recent years and chemistry – and BASF – have been part of that. In the next four or five years, glues will look different and with our ‘tool box’ and our expertise, we are well prepared for that."
Formaldehyde, a major component in glues and impregnating resins, has been in the spotlight in recent years over allegations that it is carcinogenic. FormaCare, a sector group of CEFIC (The European Chemical Industry Council) which represents key European producers of formaldehyde, aminoplast glues and polyols (see www.formacare.com) has played a major role in bringing transparency into the discussion. In the recent FormaCare meeting in Barcelona (see p49), the results of new studies were discussed jointly with scientists and politicians. The result of the discussion was that available scientific data shows that a connection between formaldehyde and cancer is unlikely at today’s levels of occupational and indoor air exposure.
"Cost is a constant challenge in terms of the cost-efficiency of our customers’ plants – increasing throughput and so on," said Mr Gutting. "Many are already running above nameplate capacity and chemistry is the answer to higher speeds, rather than mechanical alterations such as further press extensions."
For the future, apart from R&D in cooperation with its customers, BASF wants to help to tackle the issue of wildly fluctuating resin costs.
Increasing volatility of raw material prices for glues and impregnating resins is a challenge for the entire industry, said Mr. Gutting. "This is an issue we have to tackle jointly with our customers".
