In the first half of 2011 – the International Year of Chemistry – BASF’s business remained dynamic. The previous year’s excellent results were exceeded. "The economic environment in the first half of 2011 was favorable for our business. Our numbers show that we successfully took advantage of this momentum," said Dr. Kurt Bock, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE at the presentation of BASF’s results in Ludwigshafen.
Following a strong start to the year, BASF had a good and very solid second quarter. Sales improved by 13.9% to €18.5 billion and income from operations (EBIT) before special items by 1.4% to €2.2 billion despite the suspension of oil production in Libya. In the second quarter of 2010, the Libyan activities contributed an EBIT before special items of €280 million. On a comparable basis, EBIT before special items thus increased by 16%.
Compared with the extraordinary growth in the first quarter, the growth rates have normalized in the second quarter as expected. In addition, for the first time since the first quarter of 2010 currency effects were negative (minus 6%) due to the weak U.S. dollar. The inclusion of the Cognis businesses made a positive contribution to sales. In the chemicals business, sales volumes increased 5%. Due to the suspension of oil production in Libya, the contribution to earnings before taxes from Oil & Gas was lower compared with the same quarter of the previous year.
For the first half of 2011, sales were €37.8 billion, an increase of 19.4% compared with the same period of the previous year. EBIT before special items rose by 19.4% to around €5 billion.
