Leuna works

Origins

Ammonia is an important intermediate product for the manufacture of nitric acid and other nitrogen compounds, needed to produce fertilizers and explosives in particular. The increasing demand for explosives during World War I exceeded the ammonia production capacities of the Oppau works of BASF, who owned the patents for the Haber process. Leuna in central Germany, out of range of French aircraft, was selected as the location of a second plant named Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik, Ammoniakwerk Merseburg. Construction started on 25 May 1916, and the first tank car with ammonia left the works in April 1917.

In 1920, the ammonia works of Leuna and Oppau merged into Ammoniakwerke Merseburg-Oppau GmbH.

The proximity of the site to lignite (brown coal) mines was also advantageous for the production of syngas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) and tests of coal conversion into liquid fuels on an industrial scale. The Leuna plant for the commercial hydrogenation of lignite started production on April 1, 1927.

In late 1925, BASF became a branch of IG Farben, operating as Ammoniakwerk Merseburg GmbH – Leuna Werke. The site was rapidly expanded in the 1920s and 1930s, with plants producing methanol, synthetic petrol derived from the hydrogenation of lignite, amines and detergents. The synthesis of petrol, although expensive compared to world market prices, was pursued in order to reduce Germany's dependency on imported oil products. As Germany possesses very few petroleum deposits of its own, seven hydrogenation plants were constructed and were producing synthetic petrol by 1939, Leuna being the largest.

Construction of the Buna Werke Schkopau synthetic rubber plant, then a subsidiary of Leuna ammonia works, started in 1936.

1945 to 1990

After partial destruction in World War II and the dissolution of IG Farben, the works were transferred into a Soviet holding. About half of the remaining production plants were dismantled and shipped to the Soviet Union as war reparations. In the following years, the Leuna site was gradually rebuilt and expanded. In 1954 the works were transferred into public property and became known as "VEB Leuna-Werke Walter Ulbricht", the largest chemical production site in the German Democratic Republic. Next to the existing plant, the construction of Leuna II started in 1959. This was a modern petrochemical plant, with equipment such as a cracking plant for the production of ethylene and propene and the subsequent processing facilities for the production of phenol, caprolactam, and HDPE partly being supplied domestically, partly being imported from the Federal Republic of Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. In the 1950s an oil refinery was built, which processed crude oil supplied from the Soviet Union via a branch of the Druzhba pipeline. The latter also had a branch to Rostock port allowing the import of oil of other origin by sea.

Following the oil price hikes of 1973/1974, and of 1979/1980, and the reduced supply from the Soviet Union, substantial investments were made in the oil processing industry. New, more sophisticated cracking plants were imported from the Federal Republic of Germany, from Japan, Austria, and Sweden, and were operated with modern distributed control systems originating in the FRG and the United States. Thereby, the fraction of so-called "black products" such as bitumen and heavy fuel oil was reduced to almost zero in favour of the "white products" such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and light heating oil. Motor fuels produced in Leuna II were also exported outside the socialist bloc to bankroll the new plants and to earn hard currency. For instance, Leuna gasoline was sold in West Berlin. Even the heaviest residues from oil processing were used as raw material for the production of syngas in the new low-pressure methanol plant. This hydrogenation-based technology required a large amount of hydrogen and was not profitable.

Leunawerke employed about 30,000 people, the fenced-in complex extended over an area about 7 km long and 3 km wide. Two railway stations on the Halle–Bebra railway and several stops of Halle tramway line 5 served the works.