RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Starting next week, BASF will start manufacturing in Brazil a key ingredient for the production of rubbing alcohol, lacking in the country. It is a thickener that converts common alcohol, sold by sugar mills, into gel.
“Typically, we used a substance that is produced by few companies, which are failing to meet the brutal increase in demand,” says Fabricio Soto, head of BASF’s home products unit in South America. “Faced with the current humanitarian crisis, we rushed to find a solution to the problem. Rubbing alcohol is less flammable, which is why it’s approved for home use”.
Following several phone calls to the head office in Germany, Soto’s team found out that there was a product in the multinational’s portfolio that could be used to manufacture rubbing alcohol. In a few days, they were given permission to start production at the Guaratinguetá plant in the interior of São Paulo.
The research team quickly found the right solution to pass on to the rubbing alcohol producers who buy BASF’s supplies. In less than two weeks, considered a record time for the industry, everything was settled.
BASF is a German chemical company and the second largest chemical producer in the world. The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries and operates six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites in Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa.
Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has customers in over 190 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries. Despite its size and global presence, BASF has received relatively little public attention since it abandoned manufacturing and selling BASF-branded consumer electronics products in the 1990s.
At the end of 2019, the company employed 117,628 people, with over 54,000 in Germany. In 2019, BASF posted sales of €59.3 billion and income from operations before special items of about €4.5 billion.
BASF is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock Exchange.