BASF’s plan to wean itself off cheap Russian gas comes with pitfalls

There is no better place to experience German efficiency than at Ludwigshafen, a site operated by basf, the world’s largest chemicals company, an hour’s drive south of Frankfurt. Everything is joined together in this city-sized cluster of dozens of plants connected by 2,850km of twisting pipes, from two steam crackers, industrial cathedrals where a hydrocarbon mixture called naphtha is split into its components, to an immense incineration…