August 6, 2007

Volume 85, Number 32

p. 27

'Top 50' Correction

BASF was tops in 2006, edging out Dow Chemical

Patricia Short

IN THE BEGINNING, it was easy.

The first global Top 50 ranking that C&EN compiled appeared on Nov. 5, 1990. There were six columns in the table: rank, company, chemical sales, chemical sales as a percentage of total sales, chemical operating profits, and chemical operating profit margin. One column of text accompanied the table.

Over the years, that basic rubric has expanded and become more complicated, but the process of compiling the rankings has remained the same.

Some of the data included in C&EN's tables are provided by Alexander H. Tullo, a senior editor in C&EN's Northeast News Bureau, who compiles the top U.S. chemical company rankings every May. Jean-François Tremblay, head of the Hong Kong Bureau, provides data for companies in Asia. I compile the relevant data on European, Middle Eastern, and South African firms.

Tremblay and I each construct a file of our companies' data in their national currencies. The national currency data are then converted into dollars. When all of us have compiled our data, I then splice the three sets into one master file.

This year, to calculate BASF's chemical sales, I subtracted 2006 revenues for oil and gas and "other" operations from its total sales. I had to enter the resulting number into two tables: one for calculating capital and R&D spending percentages and one for the main table.

I got one of those entries wrong.

When I entered the sales number in my national currency table, I entered 38,414 million euros instead of the correct 39,414 million euros. When translated into dollars, BASF's sales came out to $48,260 million—2% less than Dow Chemical's sales. The figure should have been $49,516 million, nosing BASF past Dow. BASF was, by 0.8%, the top chemical company worldwide in 2006.

Chemical & Engineering News

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