de - Beste verfügbare Techniken (BVT) - Umweltbundesamt

1 GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 The sector
[18, CEFIC, 2003]
Chapter 1
The chemical industry substantially contributes to the EU economy, with sales of over
EUR 519000 million and a trade surplus of EUR 65000 million, making it Europe’s number one
exporter. The chemical industry and all its sectors, especially the Organic Fine Chemicals
(OFC) sector, is global in scope, competing on the world market with its products.
The chemical industry is Europe’s third largest industry, employing 1.7 million people directly
and with an additional 3 million jobs directly supporting the chemical industry. The OFC sector
is estimated to employ over 0.6 million people with a turnover of EUR 125000 million. Typical
employers include large multinationals with organic fine chemical business units, but over 90 %
of all sector companies are either middle-sized or SMEs.
Soaps and detergents 5 %
Pharmaceuticals 26 %
Crop protection 2 %
Paints and inks 6 %
Perfumes and cosmetics
7 %
Other speciality
chemicals 12 %
Figure 1.1: Sectoral breakdown of EU chemical industry sales (2003)
Petrochemicals 13 %
Other basic inorganics
3 %
Industrial gases 1 %
Fertilisers 2 %
Fine chemicals 4 %
Plastics and synthetic
rubber 16 %
Man-made fibre 3 %
Other speciality and fine chemicals are produced in smaller volumes than base chemicals.
Speciality chemicals cover the auxiliaries for industry, dyes & pigments, oleo-chemicals, crop
protection, and paints & inks. Fine chemicals represent pharma-intermediates, agrointermediates,
and chemical intermediates. Pharmaceutical covers both basic pharmaceutical
products and pharmaceutical preparations.
OFC_BREF Dezember 2005 1