BASF expects Force Majeure to end in Q3
A fire at the plant on 31st October 2017 forced the company to declare a Force Majeure on all its citral and aroma-based ingredients – including downstream products like vitamin A, vitamin E and several other carotenoids.
Previous updates suggested the plant would re-commence operations in March 2018 at the earliest – with the start-up process is expected to take several weeks, and that production of nutritional ingredients can only re-start after the initial citral plant is fully back in production.
A fresh update from BASF has now confirmed that the company has lifted its force majeure for key vitamin A and E products in its animal nutrition business. However, it will be some time until human nutritional products are back online, it added.
“Due to a more demanding quality testing process relative to its animal nutrition business, BASF expects to lift force majeure for vitamin A and E products as well as carotenoids for its human nutrition business from mid of Q3 2018 onwards, in a step-wise approach,” BASF said in a press release.
The firm added that lifting of force majeure for citral and isoprenol-based aroma ingredients is expected in Q4 – noting that time differences are due to different manufacturing steps needed in this production chain relative to its vitamin production.
Geographic impact
The company previously stated that actual availability will ‘strongly depend’ on the product and geographic regions.
Once manufactured, the lead time to ship products to regions differs, taking from a few days or weeks within Europe, to several weeks or months in countries overseas, said BASF.
