BASF, SABIC and Linde to Construct World's First Large-Scale Electrically Heated Steam Cracker Furnaces

Yousef Al-Benyan, Vice-Chairman and CEO of SABIC, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE and Jürgen Nowicki, Executive VP Linde plc and CEO of Linde Engineering on the construction site of the world’s first demonstration plant for large-scale electrically heated steam cracker furnaces in Ludwigshafen.

BASF, SABIC and Linde have started construction of the world’s first demonstration plant for large-scale electrically heated steam cracker furnaces. By using electricity from renewable sources instead of natural gas, the new technology has the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions of one of the most energy-intensive production processes in the chemical industry by at least 90% compared to technologies commonly used today.

The demonstration plant will be fully integrated into one of the existing steam crackers at BASF’s Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. It will test two different heating concepts, processing around 4 tons of hydrocarbon per hour and consuming 6 megawatts of renewable energy. The start-up of the demonstration plant is targeted for 2023.

BASF and SABIC are investing together into the project and the demonstration plant will be operated by BASF. Linde is the engineering, procurement and construction partner for the project and in the future will commercialize the developed technologies.

More information is available on the BASF website.