BASF has announced it is repositioning its global pigments business. Following the company’s acquisition of Ciba, it stated it now had the broadest product portfolio worldwide as well as a range of technologies and production know-how when it came to pigments.

After an in-depth analysis of the combined operations, the company said it would eliminate specific products and adapt production capacities to market developments.

As a consequence, approximately 500 of the current 2900 jobs in global pigment production will be made redundant.

The measures, which mainly concern azo pigments and phthalocyanines, will begin this year and are expected to be completed by 2013. BASF currently operates 22 sites for pigments worldwide.

In Europe, about 320 positions will be cut by 2013. This will mainly affect the sites in Paisley, UK and in Grenzach, Germany. About 90 positions will be cut at the South American site in Guaratinguetá, Brazil. The redundancies at its USA sites in Louisville, Kentucky and Elyria, Ohio, will total about 80 positions.

BASF’s Japanese arm has revealed that it is introducing a series of initiatives into the automotive refinish market to promote the use of the eco-friendly waterborne BASF coatings brand R-M.

BASF Coatings Japan Ltd has announced its support to bodyshops to replace conventional solventborne coatings with R-M’s waterborne product line Onyx HD. Currently, the penetration rate of eco-friendly, waterborne coatings is relatively low compared with other types of coatings. BASF said it aimed to promote a wider use, thus contributing to the industry’s voluntary initiative in 2010 to achieve a 30% reduction of VOC emissions, based on the emissions figure recorded in 2000.