BASF to build antioxidant-blends plant in Bahrain  

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will significantly expand its presence in the Middle East region by building a state-of-the-art plant for customer specific antioxidant blends (CSB) in Bahrain. CSBs are key additives for the production of polymers for the plastics industry, especially for the Middle East region. Construction of the new facility will start in September 2011. It will become one of the world’s largest CSB plants with an annual capacity of about 16,000 metric tons (m.t.). The new plant will be operational already by end of 2012. This is a major investment of BASF in the plastic additives business following its acquisition of Ciba in 2009 and manifests BASF’s strong commitment to this industry. Hans W. Reiners, president of BASF’s Performance Chemicals division, explained this strategic move: “We are very happy to establish a state-of-the-art CSB production site close to our customers in this fast-growing region. This is backed by our powerful production network of antioxidants in Asia, Europe and the Americas making us worldwide one of the leading partners to the plastic processing industry with a product portfolio unmatched in terms of broadness and quality. BASF is very much committed…