A fire at a BASF chemical plant may result in a shortage of pet food vitamins A and E, along with several carotenoids used in dog and cat food vitamin pre-mixes. The fire destroyed production control electronics at BASF’s chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on October 31, 2017.
The plant produced citral, a molecule used as a precursor to the vitamins during manufacturing. Production of citral likely will not begin until March, with another six to twelve weeks until production of the vitamins and carotenoids.
“BASF Animal Nutrition provides feed ingredients to the animal nutrition market and our customers are mainly premixers,” Tonia Theiss of BASF’s global communications division told Petfood Industry. “We are in close contact with our direct customers. We would recommend that pet food producers liaise closely with their suppliers of vitamin premixes.”
BASF chemical plant repairs and pet food vitamin availability
The fire occurred late in the evening while re-starting the BASF chemical plant after routine maintenance, due to technical equipment failure beyond the company’s control, said Theiss. Since the citral produced at the plant is necessary for synthesizing vitamins A and E and several carotenoids, BASF was forced to declare force majeure, or unforeseeable circumstances preventing contract fulfillment, on its supply of the nutrients.
“There was only minor impact on structural components of the plant,” she said. “Restoring the electrical components is a complex and time-consuming process. Our initial analysis indicates that the cleaning, follow-up inspection, repair and restart of the plant will take an extended period of time. Citral production is not expected to start before March 2018 at the earliest.
“The start-up procedure of the citral plant is expected to take several weeks,” she said. “Please be aware that after initiation of citral production, downstream products need to be manufactured in a step-wise approach.
“The downstream products of BASF’s animal nutrition business (vitamin A, E, several carotenoids) from the Ludwigshafen site are expected to become available for shipment or transport six to 12 weeks after the start-up of the citral plant,” she said. “Actual availability will strongly depend on the product.
“Once manufactured, the lead time to ship products to the regions differs, taking from a few days or weeks within Europe, to several weeks or months in countries overseas,” she said. “Please understand that we cannot be more precise with regard to timeframes for product availability at this point of time.”