chemistry

List of largest chemical producers

List of largest chemical producers is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of largest chemical producers rather than just read about it. In short: Chemical & Engineering News publishes an annual list of the world's largest chemical producers by sales, excluding formulated products such as pharmaceutical drugs and coatings. In 2018, sales of the top fifty companies amounted to US$951,000,000,000, an increase of 11.8% compared to the top fifty producers of 2017.

Key takeaways

List of largest chemical producers belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of largest chemical producers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of largest chemical producers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Chemical & Engineering News publishes an annual list of the world's largest chemical producers by sales, excluding formulated products such as pharmaceutical drugs and coatings. In 2018, sales of the top fifty companies amounted to US$951,000,000,000, an increase of 11.8% compared to the top fifty producers of 2017. The American Chemistry Council estimated that global chemical sales in 2014 rose by 3.7% to US$5,389,000,000,000. In 2018, Forty-eight of the companies on the list disclosed chemical profits, which totaled US$110,100,000,000, an increase of 1.3% from 2017. The average profit margin for chemical operations for these companies was 9.6%.

Top fifty producers by sales (2021)

Top fifty producers by sales (2018)

A.^ Some figures converted at 2018 average exchange rates of US$1.00 = R$3.6513 Brazilian, CN¥ 6.609, €0.8462, ₹67.16, ¥110.1, ₩1,099.29, ر.س 3.75, R 13.2255, CHF 0.9784, NT$30.129, and ฿32.303. B.^ Estimate by Chemical and Engineering News. C.^ Sales include a significant amount of non-chemical products. D.^ Chemical sales less administrative expenses and cost of sales.

Largest companies since 1988 Since Chemical & Engineering News began keeping records in 1989, BASF has been the world's largest chemical producer by annual sales more frequently than any other company. The other companies that have headed the list are Dow Chemical, DowDuPont (which broke up into Dow, a new DuPont, and Corteva Agriscience in 2019), Hoechst (which merged with Rhône-Poulenc in 1999 and is now a subsidiary of Sanofi), ICI (acquired by AkzoNobel in 2008) and Bayer.

A.^ Foreign currencies converted to USD using average exchange rates of that year.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of largest chemical producers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of largest chemical producers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of largest chemical producers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of largest chemical producers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of largest chemical producers

In research: List of largest chemical producers appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of largest chemical producers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of largest chemical producers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Chemical industry, Lists of largest companies, Lists of manufacturers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of largest chemical producers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “List of largest chemical producers” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study List of largest chemical producers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what List of largest chemical producers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain List of largest chemical producers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is List of largest chemical producers in simple terms?

Why does List of largest chemical producers matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of largest chemical producers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of largest chemical producers.