The latest 50 global chemical companies announced Dow DuPont summit

    On July 29th, the US Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) released the latest list of the top 50 global chemical companies. Dow DuPont hopes to reach the top, with chemical sales of US$86 billion in 2018; BASF's sales of US$74.1 billion, ranking second; Sinopec's sales of chemicals in 2018 were US$69.2 billion, ranking third.

    Five Chinese chemical companies have entered the top 50 globally, an increase of one from the previous year. PetroChina ranks 12th as the new company on the list this year; Sinopec still ranks 3rd, and Formosa Plastics ranks 6th; Wanhua Chemical has made significant progress, ranking 37 this year; Syngenta acquired by China National Chemical Corporation , ranked 31st.

    There are five new chemical companies listed this year. In addition to PetroChina, it also includes Nutrien, Umicore, Johnson Matthey, and Celanese.

    The list shows that the global chemical market is growing strongly in 2018, but it is showing signs of slowing. The top 50 chemical companies in 2018 had a combined revenue of $926.8 billion, an increase of 13.4% over the same period last year.

    However, the profitability of the top 50 global chemical companies has not increased too much, indicating that the market may lose momentum. For the 48 chemical companies that released comparable annual results, chemical operating profit increased only 3.4% to $111.0 billion. Among them, 23 companies reported a decline in profits, especially in 6 out of 8 Japanese companies.

    At the top of the world's top 50 this year is a new company, Dow DuPont, which was the result of the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont in 2017. It ended BASF's 12-year rule and became the world's largest chemical company, but only temporary. Earlier this year, Dow DuPont has been split into three separate companies: Dow, DuPont and Corteva Agriscience, and Dow and DuPont will definitely be ranked next year. Then, BASF will definitely regain the top spot next year.