BASF Chemicals give very bullish 3Q07 report and outlook for 2007 - not clear how paper chemicals is performing

BASF has given its 3rd quarter 2007 report and a positive outlook for the remainder of the year. A summary of the figures is available. Despite the bullish bravado from the German company, the markets have remained skeptical (eg Forbes).

Overall, the BASF group increased sales by 5 percent to nearly €14 billion in the third quarter of 2007. Income from operations (EBIT) before special items rose by 6 percent to €1.7 billion.

Cumulative sales in the first nine months of 2007 rose by 13 percent to €43.3 billion. EBIT before special items increased by 9 percent to €5.9 billion.

As usual, for very large, muti-divisional companies such as BASF it is difficult to get at the performance of their paper chemicals business. In fact, after scanning through all the reports it is difficult to find a single mention of the paper business and its impact on BASF's financial results.

Looking forward, BASF expects the following in for the remainder of 2007:

• Global economic growth of 3.5 percent
• An average oil price (Brent) of around $70/barrel (probably already the wrong prediction!)
  
• An average dollar/euro exchange rate of $1.35 per euro