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.^[1] In 2018, sales of the top fifty companies amounted to US$951,000,000,000, an increase of 11.8% compared to the top fifty producers of 2017.^[2] The American Chemistry Council estimated that global chemical sales in 2014 rose by 3.7% to US$5,389,000,000,000.^[3]

In 2018, Forty-eight of the companies on the list disclosed chemical profits, which totaled US$110,100,000,000, an increase of 1.3% from 2017. The average profit margin for chemical operations for these companies was 9.6%.^[1]

More information Rank, Company ...

Rank	Company	Chemical sales in 2018 USD millions[A]	Change from 2017 in percent	Headquarters
1	DowDuPont	85,977	37.6	Midland, Michigan, US
2	BASF	74,066	2.4	Ludwigshafen, Germany
3	Sinopec	69,210	22.4	Beijing, China
4	Sabic	42,120	12	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
5	Ineos	36,970	2.1	London, UK
6	Formosa Plastics[B]	36,891	13.8	Taipei, Taiwan
7	ExxonMobil Chemical	32,443	13.1	Irving, Texas, US
8	LyondellBasell Industries	30,783	8.7	Houston, Texas US/ Rotterdam, Netherlands
9	Mitsubishi Chemical	28,747	7.1	Tokyo, Japan
10	DuPont	25,935	37.6	Wilmington, Delaware, US
11	LG Chem	25,637	9.7	Seoul, South Korea
12	Reliance Industries	25,167	37.3	Mumbai, India
13	PetroChina	24,849	n/a	Beijing, China
14	Air Liquide	24,322	2.8	Paris, France
15	Toray Industries	18,651	8.7	Tokyo, Japan
16	Evonik Industries	17,755	4.2	Essen, Germany
17	Covestro	17,273	3.4	Leverkusen, Germany
18	Bayer[C]	16,859	49	Leverkusen, Germany
19	Sumitomo Chemical	16,081	8.7	Tokyo, Japan
20	Braskem	15,885	17.7	São Paulo, Brazil
21	Lotte Chemical	15,051	4.2	Seoul, South Korea
22	Linde plc	14,900	30.3	Dublin, Ireland
23	Shin-Etsu Chemical[C]	14,439	10.6	Tokyo, Japan
24	Mitsui Chemicals	13,432	11.6	Tokyo, Japan
25	Solvay	13,353	3.7	Brussels, Belgium
26	Yara	12,928	13.8	Oslo, Norway
27	Chevron Phillips Chemical	11,310	24.8	The Woodlands, Texas, US
28	DSM	10,951	7.4	Heerlen, Netherlands
29	Indorama	10,747	21.2	Jakarta, Indonesia
30	Asahi Kasei	10,654	8.1	Tokyo, Japan
31	Arkema	10,418	5.9	Colombes, France
32	Syngenta	10,413	12.6	Basel, Switzerland
33	Eastman Chemical	10,151	6.3	Kingsport, Tennessee, US
34	Borealis	9,852	10.2	Vienna, Austria
35	SK Innovation	9,719	14.4	Seoul, South Korea
36	Mosaic	9,587	29.4	Tampa, Florida, US
37	Huntsman	9,379	12.2	The Woodlands, Texas, US
38	Wanhua Chemical	9,172	14.1	Yantai, China
39	PTT Global Chemical	8,969	15.7	Bangkok, Thailand
40	Ecolab[C]	8,964	11	Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
41	Air Products & Chemicals	8,930	9.1	Allentown, Pennsylvania, US
42	Westlake Chemical	8,635	7.4	Houston, US
43	Lanxess	8,505	-25.5	Cologne, Germany
44	Nutrien	8,130	75.9	Saskatoon, Canada
45	Umicore[C]	8,113	27.1	Brussels, Belgium
46	Sasol	8,110	4.2	Sandton, South Africa
47	Tosoh	7,803	4.7	Tokyo, Japan
48	Johnson Matthey[C]	7,579	16.1	London, UK
49	DIC	7,296	2	Tokyo, Japan
50	Hanwha Chemical[D]	7,273	3.3	Seoul, South Korea
51	Celanese	7,155	16.5	Irving, Texas, US

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A.^{^} Some figures converted at 2018 average exchange rates of US$1.00 = R$3.6513 Brazilian, RMB 6.609, €0.8462, ₹67.16, ¥110.1, ₩1,099.29, SRls 3.75, R 13.2255, SFr 0.9784, NT$30.129, and ฿32.303.^[1]

B.^{^} Estimate by Chemical and Engineering News.^[1]

C.^{^} Sales include a significant amount of non-chemical products.^[1]

D.^{^} Chemical sales less administrative expenses and cost of sales.^[1]

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 (which broke up into Dow, a new DuPont, and Corteva Agriscience in 2019), Hoechst (which merged with Rhône-Poulenc in 1999 and is now a subsidiary of Sanofi), ICI (acquired by AkzoNobel in 2008) and Bayer.

A.^{^} Foreign currencies converted to USD using average exchange rates of that year.