After years of neglect, signs are emerging that Europe’s political leaders are starting to act to protect the region’s ailing chemical industry, which is shrinking in the face of high costs and cheap global competition.
Several heads of European states as well as European Commission (EC) president Ursula von der Leyen pledged a series of measures to support the sector at the European Industry Summit, held Feb. 11 in Antwerp, Belgium. And the EC has introduced antidumping duties on the polymer acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and on 1,4-butanediol (BDO), a raw material for spandex and engineering polymers, to protect the region’s producers.
“Europe is suddenly moving forward in response to today’s crisis,” Paul Hodges, president of the consulting firm New Normal Consulting, says in the pH Report, its newsletter. “But we are hopeful, on the basis that all the political leaders recognised time was of the essence. There will be no ‘second chance’ if they now fail to act.”
“Together we must secure your future in our continent.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president, European Commission
In a speech at the Antwerp summit, von der Leyen flagged the EC’s commitment to slash regulatory costs and increase support for companies seeking to lower the carbon footprint of their operations. Among other measures, the EC says it will channel more money raised from the Emissions Trading System, which charges European producers for emitting greenhouse gases, back to companies. “Your industry is the industry of industries. So together we must secure your future in our continent,” she said.
Then on Feb. 12, one day after the summit, the EC imposed antidumping duties ranging from 5.2 to 21.7% on ABS imported into the European Union (EU) from South Korean and Taiwanese companies. The dumping of ABS “is causing injury to EU-based manufacturers of this product, located in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, where some 920 people are directly employed in making it,” the EC says in a press release.
Those duties follow the Feb. 4 introduction of duties on BDO from China, Saudi Arabia, and the US that add 52.4–142.5% to the price of the chemical. The EC is also investigating other cases where local producers are seeking antidumping charges, including on adipic acid from China.
The measures taken against BDO imports have already had a positive impact. Following the action, BASF said in a news release that it plans to expand capacity to make the chemical at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Berenberg analyst Sebastian Bray has upgraded his financial forecast for BASF, writing in a note to investors that “cuts to near-terms earnings estimates [are] superseded by potential upside from political support beyond 2026.”
The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), a trade group, says that measures to protect Europe’s chemical industry cannot come fast enough. A recent report by the organization found that companies have closed 37 million metric tons per year of chemical production capacity since 2022, equivalent to about 9% of the region’s capacity, with the loss of 20,000 jobs. “The sector is under severe stress and breaking,” Marco Mensink, Cefic’s director general, says in a press release. “The rate of closures has doubled in a year, and even worse, annual investments are half and close to zero.”
European companies such as Ineos increasingly have been calling for support from politicians. In November, Ineos filed 10 antidumping lawsuits in a bid to halt a flood of low-cost imports of chemicals with high carbon footprints. The chemicals featured in the suits include BDO, polyolefins, and polyvinyl chloride.
Alex Scott is a C&EN business reporter covering all chemistry-related issues in Europe.
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