OREANDA-NEWS. BASF will combine its businesses with water solutions and oilfield and mining solutions effective April 1, 2013, to increase efficiency and support its growth strategies. The new global business unit will be located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

“By combining the strengths of these businesses, sharpening our focused market approach and at the same time increasing operational and innovation excellence, we are in a good position to advance innovative solutions to the water, oilfield and mining industries,” said Hans W. Reiners, President of BASF’s Performance Chemicals division.

BASF offers a wide range of products for key processes of industrial and municipal water treatment, products for the drilling and completion of oil wells and mineral processing reagents for the mining industry. All three businesses include parts of the polyacrylamide (PAM) value chain. With the combination of these businesses BASF is taking various steps to increase efficiency and operational excellence in its PAM operations. Significant investments are planned to upgrade the performance of existing production plants, create additional capacity, strengthen R&D efforts and establish a new bio-acrylamide process for further cost optimization.