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Tradition

The history of our large chemical complex began in 1916 when Carl Bosch, commissioned by BASF, founded an ammonia plant in Leuna.
Thanks to the great chemist's forward-thinking plans, Leuna quickly earned an international reputation for chemical production. After the introduction of ammonia synthesis for industrial purposes, large-scale production of methanol was established in 1923 based on a high-pressure process. In the late 1920's Leuna became a production site for the mineral oil industry when Matthias Pier developed a brown coal hydrogenation process to manufacture synthetic fuels.

In 1938 women around the globe had a reason to be happy: in that year the synthesis of caprolactam resulted in Perlon. The series of successes with the introduction of large-scale industrial processes knew no end. For example, the site was the first in the world to manufacture synthetic surfactants in 1942.

After the war Leuna became a chemical powerhouse for Eastern-Block countries. In fact, local investors are still profiting today from the reputation developed under the former East German flag. Examples of ongoing cooperation in the field of raw materials include crude oil from Russia and ethylene from the Czech Republic.

With the reunification of Germany, Leuna experienced a renewed impetus as Western corporations began seizing the opportunity to take advantage once again of this unique site.

The use of public investment incentives has considerably improved the prospects of settlement from potential investors. Here, state-of-the-art infrastructure is available at particularly interesting conditions.