Expectations from the Namur Annual General Meeting are understandably high - and once again, no one was disappointed. Many exciting and future-oriented lectures and discussions on subjects like Remote Operation, Industry 4.0, modularized automation and plant performance illustrated on the very first day the direction in which users and suppliers in process automation are being forced. The sector must overcome its limits in order to embrace new solutions...

In February 2019, BASF has founded the new company BASF Digital Solutions located in Madrid, Spain to drive forward the digital transformation of the group and develop innovative IT solutions. The company plans to grow the center to more than 300 digital specialists within the next years.

Tomorrow's automation technology starts today. From field device daily routine through the chances of modularization up to data mining. Suspense and excitement continued on the second day of the Namur Annual General Meeting. Here, it was clearly palpable: The modernization tempo that users and operators in the process automation have jointly unleashed has increased significantly.

BASF commissioned Rockwell Automation to modernize an automation system in a loading bay used for polymer dispersions at the company’s Ludwigshafen Verbund site in Germany. With only eight months to plan the new system and just three days for commissioning, the project required an extraordinarily structured approach and an intensive test phase. The result is a system with high levels of flexibility and availability as well as easier maintenance.

The goal of debottlenecking is to increase production capacity at an existing plant by making modifications to the equipment configuration or workflow. This is accomplished by eliminating bottlenecks that limit throughput. It can be an extremely profitable exercise for users, because in most cases debottlenecking adds extra capacity at a fraction of the cost of new build or expansion. PROCESS has put together some practical examples.

The refinery catalyst market is set to grow from its current market value of more than 4 billion dollars to over 5.5 billion dollars by 2025; according to a report by Global Market Insights.

German chemicals giant BASF invests more than 200 million Euro to boost the production of several key fungicides, including F 500 and Xemium in both the US and Germany. This investment, one of the largest of BASF's Crop Protection division division in recent years, is a reaction to an expected rising demand for these substances, company speakers explained.

BASF announced today that it has signed a purchase agreement to acquire the styrene catalysts business of CRI/Criterion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell based in Houston, Texas. Financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed.

Anyone planning investment projects in China must follow the clearly-specified rules of the game, otherwise he is pre-programmed to fail. Without support from Chinese Design Institutes, nothing gets off the ground at all in China. The reason for this was illuminated at a DECHEMA information day.

The leading chemical companies in the world come from Germany and the US: BASF with a turnover of 73.5 billion euros in 2011 was well ahead of US-based Dow Chemical which had a turnover of 46.28 billion euros. Nevertheless, BASF only came 71st in Fortune magazine’s rankings of the world's major corporations. Currently, no company from the emerging economies of India, China or Brazil made it intoi the Top-10---