Page 167 - CW E-Magazine (7-11-2023)

News from Abroad

DIFFICULT MARKET ENVIRONMENT

WACKER reports significant sales and earnings

decline in Q3

Wacker Chemie AG saw its sales and EBITDA in the lower half of the This year’s award winner is Markus
and earnings decline significantly in respective forecast ranges. Accordingly, Bauer, whose project team developed
the third quarter of 2023 due to the per- Group sales are likely to be around a model-based process control system
sistently difficult market environment. €6.5-bn. Full-year EBITDA is expec- called Advanced Process Control (APC)
The chemical company generated sales ted to come in at between €800-mn to optimize production processes in real
of €1.52-bn in the reporting quarter and €900-mn. time. The award ceremony took place
(Q3 2022: €2.13-bn), down 29%. This this week at the Group’s Sustainability
decrease was chiefly due to lower sell- “The economic climate remained Conference in Burghausen.
ing prices. Volume and exchange-rate challenging for WACKER in the third
effects further reduced sales slightly. quarter – as it did for the entire chemi- The award-winning project is a soft-
Compared with Q2 2023 (€1.75-bn), cal industry,” said Group CEO, Mr. ware-based methodology to optimise
sales decreased 13%. Christian Hartel. According to him, process control in chemical facilities.
the expected recovery in demand in the In this way, data from an actual facility,
In Q3 2023, WACKER posted earn- second half of 2023, which many mar- as well as external parameters, such
ings before interest, taxes, depreciation ket experts had forecasted at the begin- as air temperature and humidity,
and amortization (EBITDA) of €152- ning of the year, has yet to materialize. are entered into a dynamic, model-
mn (Q3 2022: €457-mn), down 67% “That is why sales and earnings are predictive control technique with APC.
year over year. The decline was due far below our strong prior-year figures This forward-looking process optimi-
to lower prices and volumes as well after the first nine months of the year,” sation makes it possible, for example,
as partly lower plant utilization rates. explained the CEO. to save some of the heating steam
Compared with the preceding quarter required for distillation columns or
(€256-mn), EBITDA fell 41%. The Sustainability Award to honour powder dryers.
Group’s EBITDA margin for the three innovative approach to process
months from July through September control in production Throughout the WACKER Group,
2023 was 10.0%. A year earlier, the In another development, WACKER more than 100 APC controllers with
figure was 21.4%, while the prior quar- announced that it has presented its ‘Net more than 600 control loops are cur-
ter’s EBITDA margin was 14.6%. Zero Award’ to honour an engineering rently active within all business divi-
project for its innovative approach to sions and at all major sites, especially
In view of the ongoing weak cus- more efficient process control in pro- in large upstream facilities worldwide,
tomer demand in a large number of duction. The award, worth €10,000, is as they are ideal for this methodology
industries with no noticeable turn- presented each year to individuals or due to their high throughput. Based on
around in sight and the lower year- teams whose projects contribute to the internal calculations, these APC con-
over-year prices for many of its product implementation of the Group’s sustain- trollers help WACKER save 150-ktpa
groups, WACKER now expects sales ability goals. of CO .
2
Perstorp receives gold medal for sustainability

from EcoVadis

Perstorp has advanced to a gold Vadis has grown to become storp showed progress in
medal by EcoVadis for the year 2023. the world’s largest and most three of the four evaluation
This means that, when it comes to trusted provider of business areas during 2023 – Envi-
sustainability performance, Perstorp sustainability ratings, creating ronment, Labour & Human
now ranks in the top 5% of the indus- a global network of more than Rights, and Sustainable Pro-
try. Since its founding in 2007, Eco- 100,000 rated companies. Per- curement.

Chemical Weekly November 7, 2023 167

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