The "2006 Chemical Engineering & News" magazine recently released the 2006 Global Top 50 Chemical Companies list. Compared with the rankings in the past five years, this year's Top 50 ranking has undergone a very big change. Dow Chemical and BASF still ranked first and second respectively. Due to the continuous rise in prices of petroleum and petrochemical products, DuPont, a veteran company, was pushed to the sixth place by the chemical companies of the world's three largest oil giants. ExxonMobil and Total's chemical business ranked three to five in turn. At the same time, the increase in the intensity of global industrial mergers and acquisitions has disrupted the order of the rankings.
For the past five years, Dow Chemical, BASF, and DuPont have been among the top three in the annual ranking of chemical companies in the world's top 50 chemical companies. This year's list is eye-popping. DuPont, which has been ranked third on the list, was squeezed out of the camp. Under the stimulation of high oil and petrochemical product prices, the other four companies ranked in the top 10 are: Sinopec, BP's chemical subsidiaries, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, and Bayer AG.
At the same time, due to the increase in the intensity of global industrial M&A and reorganization, mergers and acquisitions among enterprises have also brought about a big change in this year's rankings. There have even been two new faces.
Leonard Chemical Company, the company that was not found on the rankings last year, ranked 12th in this year's rankings, mainly because the company acquired Millennium Chemicals in December 2004. Ineos has made large-scale acquisitions in the past two years, so it jumped from the 32nd place last year to the 17th place this year.
At the same time, there are still some companies that have been spun off. For example, Basel, which ranks 24th in the rankings, was previously a joint venture between Shell and BASF at a ratio of 50:50. The company became an independent company in 2005 and therefore appeared with its previous parent company on this year's rankings. And LANXESS, which ranks 28th in the rankings, was also spun off from Bayer in 2005 to become a completely independent company. Yara, a fertilizer manufacturer, ranked 36th, has continued to grow since 2004 when it was suspended by the Norwegian Hydro Company, ranking six places higher than last year. With only a small part of the chemical business left, Hydro has no strength in this ranking.
The top 50 chemical companies in China this year had a combined sales income of US$665.6 billion in 2005, which was calculated at a fixed exchange rate and was 15% higher than the 2004 sales revenue. The top 50 chemical company's sales revenue threshold also increased by 3% over the previous year to reach 5.4 billion US dollars.
The survey also showed that the profitability of the chemical industry continued to increase, and the total operating profit rate reached 9.1%, an increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year. Most chemical companies have seen an increase in profitability in 2005. Only 14 companies have seen their earnings decline in varying degrees. Among them, only BP and Ciba Specialty Chemicals have suffered losses due to a major restructuring plan in 2005.
Compared with previous years, the regional pattern of this year's rankings is basically unchanged. A total of 13 U.S. companies rank among the world’s top 50, one less than the 14 listed on last year’s list. The median number of rankings is the highest among European companies, reaching 22, an increase from last year. In addition, there are eight Japanese companies and seven companies from other parts of the world that are on the same list as last year.