ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies ranking shows BASF regains lead

ICIS has announced its annual ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies listing of global producers ranked by 2019 sales.

This year, Germany’s BASF regained the lead as the world’s largest chemical company with sales of $66.6bn in 2019, a decline of 1.5% from 2018.

China-based Sinopec came in second with $63.2bn in chemicals sales, followed by US-based Dow in third with $43.0bn in revenues, US-based LyondellBasell in fourth with $34.7bn in sales and Saudi Arabia’s SABIC in fifth with $32.5bn in sales.

Joseph Chang, Global Editor of ICIS Chemical Business, said: “2019 was a tough year for the global chemicals sector with declines in sales and profits almost across the board amid a manufacturing slowdown. This has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 which will hit results even harder.”

The synchronized global manufacturing slowdown along with overcapacity in key chemicals markets made for a difficult 2019.

Nigel Davis, ICIS Insight Editor, added: “The Top 100 companies generated revenues of $1.05 trillion in 2019 - down 4.9% on 2018 on a comparable, as reported, basis. The data show that 33 of the companies in this listing reported a fall in sales of more than 10%.”

This compares to a robust 2018 where the ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies generated combined sales of $1.2 trillion, up 10% from a year earlier.