BASF planned 3 months of maintenance at the TDI plant in Ludwigshafen in March?

BASF plans to carry out maintenance work at production of toluene diisocyanate (TDI) at its 300,000 metric tons per year plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in early March, market sources revealed to the company.

A source said, "The plant is expected to undergo scheduled maintenance from early March to the end of May, but we don't know the exact date of the maintenance." BASF declined to comment. "We do not comment on plant maintenance or run rates." A company spokesman said.

Another source speculated that TDI production at the plant could slow from the end of February in preparation for a shutdown for maintenance, which IHS Markit's chief toluene analyst Eleanor Dann said would result in lower toluene consumption than in recent months.

“Whilst the turnaround for TDI production will reduce consumption of TDI-grade toluene, this will not necessarily result in an additional 10,000-15,000 metric tons of length for the toluene market as supply is likely to be adjusted in knowledge of the outage,” said Dann.

On August 31, 2020 the TDI production plant in Ludwigshafen experienced unforeseeable technical problems. BASF has tried to restart the plant since then, and the company restarted its toluene diisocyanate (TDI) plant by the end of November.

BASF started operations at the Ludwigshafen TDI plant in November 2015 after investing more than €1 billion to build it. Since then, it has not consistently operated at optimal rates at the site, encountering different production and technical issues which have caused delays and shutdowns, according to Elliott.