List of largest chemical producers


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, 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.
In 2018, DowDuPont, the result of the 2017 merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont, became the world's top chemical producer. It ends BASF’s 12-year streak as the largest chemical company in the world, but DowDuPont then split into three separate firms—Dow, DuPont, and Corteva Agriscience—in early 2019. In 2018, More than half of the companies on the list were headquartered in the United States, Japan or Germany ; 18 countries in total were represented.
In 2018, Forty-eight of the companies on the list disclosed chemical profits, which totaled, an increase of 1.3% from 2017. The average profit margin for chemical operations for these companies was 9.6%.

The top fifty producers in 2018 by sales

The largest companies before 2019

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, Hoechst, ICI and Bayer.
YearCompanyChemical sales
USD millions		Source
1988Bayer22,694
1989BASF17,122
1990BASF18,520
1991ICI18,127
1992BASF22,883
1993Hoechst16,682
1994Hoechst19,702
1995BASF22,030
1996BASF26,519
1997BASF27,047
1998BASF27,740
1999BASF31,250
2000BASF30,791
2001Dow Chemical27,805
2002Dow Chemical27,609
2003Dow Chemical32,632
2004Dow Chemical40,161
2005Dow Chemical46,307
2006BASF49,516
2007BASF65,037
2008BASF70,485
2009BASF54,817
2010BASF70,391
2011BASF85,603
2012BASF79,760
2013BASF78,615
2014BASF78,698
2015BASF63,749
2016BASF60,653
2017BASF69,195
2018DowDuPont85,977