Ludwigshafen, Germany — BASF saw sales in its Performance Products segment, fall by 1% to EUR 3.6 bn in the fourth quarter of 2016 compared with the same quarter of 2015. EBIT before special items rose slightly to EUR 231 m supported by improved margins, the company said in its annual results meeting.
Full-year sales in the segment were EUR 15.0 bn, 4% below the 2015 level, mostly due to falling sales prices and divestitures completed in 2015, BASF said.
Looking at the whole of 2016 Kurt Bock, chairman of the board of executive directors of BASF said "as the year progressed, we were able to increase BASF's growth. Our sales volumes rose from quarter to quarter. Particularly in Asia, we continually increased our sales volumes in the chemicals business."
For the full 2016 year however, across the group sales decreased by 18% to EUR 57.6 bn. This was mainly due to the company selling its gas trading and storage business as part of an asset swap with Gazprom from the end of September 2015. That business contributed EUR 10.1bn to sales in 2015.
Looking to 2017, the company said it expects sales to grow considerably across the group. And this will be supported by "slightly higher sales and performance products and by considerable increases in the remaining segments. Earnings from Performance Products, Functional Materials & Solutions and Agricultural Solution segments "we assume EBIT before special items will be slightly higher."
