BASF plant fire: Force Majeure for vitamins and carotenoids at Citral plant

10 Nov 2017 --- BASF has announced that it has shut down its Citral plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and has had to declare Force Majeure for its Citral- and Isoprenol-based aroma ingredients following a fire on October 31 during the startup of the plant.

BASF’s vitamin A and E plants are currently also shut down for scheduled, routine maintenance, the company has added. BASF will only be able to restart these plants once supply of Citral is re-established and the corresponding intermediates for vitamin A and E become available.

As the cleaning process, follow-up inspection, repair and restart of the Citral plant will take several weeks, BASF notes that it is forced to extend the Force Majeure to vitamin A and E and, in consequence, to several carotenoid products.

“We are currently evaluating the situation in order to have an accurate estimation of the damage and to define the further proceedings,” Tonia Theiss, BASF Global Communications Nutrition & Health, tells NutritionInsight. “Some areas are difficult to access, so we cannot be more precise about detailed measures.”

The impact of the Force Majeure situation as well as the effects for customers resulting therefrom are being evaluated at the moment, BASF reports. Meanwhile, the company asserts that it is implementing measures to limit the consequences of the situation.

BASF reports that it will continuously inform its customers about the development and the details regarding the supply capability of the affected products.

“We have informed our customers about the declaration of Force Majeure,” Theiss tells NutritionInsight. “During this Force Majeure situation, our remaining stocks will be supplied to all our customers in a fair and reasonable manner according to contractual obligations and applicable law. We will approach our customers with details about our progress and our supply situation on a regular basis.”

Elsewhere in the company, BASF recently entered into a distribution agreement with DIEM Labs to commercialize BASF’s first US medical food product for the dietary management of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. BASF and Segterra have also initiated a collaboration with BASF’s health ingredients brand, Newtrition, to provide personalized nutrition recommendations and scientific support for InsideTracker, an online platform developed by Segterra. 

By Paul Creasy