Chemistry
100 years of chemistry in Leuna
The chemical-pharmaceutical industry, with almost 450,000 employees, to the important economic sectors in Germany. One of the largest chemical facilities in Leuna. Today he is a role model for change.
It was a milestone in the now 100-year history of Leuna. 25. May 1994, Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) on a field in Spergau for the shovel – the symbolic start of construction for the then-five-billion D-Mark expensive refinery. The German-French Mega-project was the largest of the post-war period.
Then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the ceremony in Leuna
Almost 22 years after the Kohl’s ground-breaking ceremony, Angela Merkel, is now coming to Leuna. She speaks during the opening ceremony of “100 years of the chemical site of Leuna,” this Thursday (3. March) and wants to take a picture of the former Chancellor once promised “blooming landscapes”.
In Leuna
The history of the giant plant in the South of Saxony-Anhalt is characterised by highs and Lows, light and shadow. Today, the industry looks Leuna as a flagship site for change. More than 100 companies – including the major globally active companies like the French oil company Total and the Belgian chemical group, Domo – have settled on the 1300-acre Area.
Of the GDR state Council Chairman Walter Ulbricht visited in 1962, the Leuna-Werke
In GDR times, the former “VEB Leuna-Werke Walter Ulbricht”, and other chemistry has been performed-large-scale enterprises, as in the neighboring Schkopau (Buna), Bitterfeld, Wolfen and Böhlen down-and-out. After the turn, it went uphill again.
Since 1990, a total of more than six billion euros were invested on the Leuna site, reports Christof Günther, managing Director of infrastructure and service company Infraleuna GmbH. One of the most important events of the construction of the refinery for him.
The project caused a stir in connection with the CDU donations affair and related to alleged payment of bribes in the millions from France. Former Chancellor Kohl held up today against allegations of bribery.
Today: a success story
“Today, Leuna is very well,” says Günther. “We have construction currently, so much as for a long time, our companies here are well utilised.” Per year a turnover of around ten billion euros will have.
Investment of 200 million euros, according to currently of the company and from the company itself. This includes the development of new business fields, expansion of facilities, capacity, logistics, and the modernization of the infrastructure with kilometres included long pipelines.
Total has the most employees in Leuna
Largest employer the Total Raffinerie mitteldeutschland GmbH have migrated to the oil – processing plant, according to Guenther, there are from the crude oil supplied by Pipeline from Russia, especially fuels such as gasoline and Diesel, and fuel oil produced by the centre for technical gases Linde AG, and the Belgian chemical and fiber producer Domo. In addition, had established many of the medium-sized and smaller companies.
Concept For Success: Specialization
“The strategy of our company is the right to be secure in the global competition as a supplier specialized on your niche, in order to avoid the interchangeability of their products with mass producers such as China,” explains the site-in-chief Günther. An advantage of the composite system from Leuna, where on-the-spot raw material suppliers and producers, closely cooperate.
In the course of the structural change of the East German industry after 1990, Leuna was born – “actually, out of necessity” – a pioneer in the chemical parks, of which there are nationwide from Ludwigshafen, Germany to Bitterfeld, close to 40, says Torsten Kiesner, a spokesman for the regional Association North-East in the Association of the Chemical industry. Earlier mills were sold by the trust in individual parts. In addition, new companies moved to the renovated Old sites or on the green Meadow next door.
Ammonia, Explosives, Stockings – Forced Labourers
History in Leuna
The history of the Leuna began in 1916 with the construction of the Ammonia plant on behalf of BASF. Of ammonia for fertilizers and explosives were made. With Leuna inventions as the basic material of nylon for hosiery industry, or synthetic fuels on the Basis of brown coal as a petroleum substitute are connected.
But also of great suffering and Horror, the story of the industrial site to the South of the hall. So products such as the Leuna-gasoline were used in the NS-time of the machinery of war. Thousands of workers were forced to work in factories in Leuna in inhumane conditions, were tortured in Camps such as in Spergau, as documents prove.
The change of the location and the industry after the end of the GDR was accompanied by then again, with some sorrow: tens of thousands of jobs were lost with the closure and demolition of dilapidated equipment way. Alternatively-Jobs, there were hardly any. The Region in the hall circle to suffer despite billions of investments, which were mitsubventioniert for the most part, by the taxpayer, is still unemployment. With 9.5 percent, the unemployment rate in the room circle was in January of 2016, however, the ratio of Saxony-Anhalt (10.9 percent).
In the future: precursors of the chemical industry in their sights
The administrative building of the chemical parks in Leuna
Computer and modern control systems are also popular in the chemical, in order to meet the cost and competitive pressure by low – cost competition from Asia. The Leuna-refinery – been in operation since 1997, I want to focus in the future due to a trend toward lower fuel consumption more fuel-efficient engines, even more on the production of intermediate products for the chemical industry.
Its construction was ultimately a political decision. “It took the Kanzlerworts of Helmut Kohl and (France’s former President) François Mitterrand,” says spokesman Stefan, Möslein. Background: The former Investor, Elf Aquitaine (Paris) should then be temporarily moved away from his original plans.