Bayer CropScience invests 100 million in new herbicide production

With a solemn ceremony, the foundation stone was laid for the new glufosinate-ammonium plant at Höchst Industrial Park.

In the presence of 220 Bayer Cropscience colleagues, mainly from the Basta-operation (Basta is the product name), as well as some special guests, a copper time capsule was filled with a variety of objects and placed in an almost finished piece of wall of the future investment. In perhaps one hundred or two hundred years, this capsule could be discovered, it’s content been rescued and subsequently analyzed and admired by a then future generation.

A total of 14 items have been ‘donated’ by  Dr. Dirk Backhaus, a member of the Executive Committee and responsible for global production, Dr . Michael van Nooy, Head of Global AI Operations, the site manager of Production Dr. Frank Zurmühlen, the project manager Peter Bruzak and Markus WeissLand and Dr. Gunter Karig, Second Superintendent of Basta-facility.

Brought along, among other things were a sealed Basta-sample, disused iPhone, a card game, a presentation of AC 1 operating history, two daily newspapers, a stick with techno music and a sealed bag with herbs for the Frankfurter national dish "Grie Soß" (green sauce).

Subsequently, the managers gathered on a stage in the middle of the construction site were allowed to help the Frankfurt works council chairman Theo Rennkamp and the managing director of Infraserv, Dr. Jürgen Vormann to lend a hand and insert the last stones like an expert into the wall.

Bayer CropScience is investing some 100 million euros in the new GA-facility. The capacity of the Basta-production at the Frankfurt site will be doubled in this way. In addition, about twenty new jobs will be created. Completion of the plant is planned for spring 2017.