Procurement and Logistics

WACKER’s procurement volume increased in 2018 to €3.6 billion (2017: €3.2 billion). The main reasons were marked production output growth, increased prices for raw materials and energy, and higher capital spending on production facilities. At 73 percent, the procurement rate – raw materials, services and other materials as a percentage of sales – was above the prior-year level (2017: 62 percent). The number of suppliers remained stable at around 11,000 (2017: 11,500).

At €2.1 billion, energy and raw-material procurement was 11 percent higher year over year (2017: €1.87 billion), with quantities procured rising by a low-single-digit percentage. After years of falling market prices, many petrochemicals and metals have increased markedly in price since 2017, and 2018 saw further price increases for coal and oil. This drove up prices for electricity and natural gas procurement, as well as for many other raw materials. The Chinese authorities’ environmental audits of raw-material companies and production outages for acetic acid pushed up the prices of several of WACKER’s key raw materials and caused other price increases. Upward price pressure also came from the increase in the cost of CO₂ certificates in the European Union.

Shipping Volumes Substantially Higher

Shipping volumes rose significantly versus the year before. Globally, WACKER shipped 2.3 million metric tons of finished and semi-finished products (2017: 2.2 million metric tons). Burghausen, the Group’s largest logistics hub, increased its shipping volume to around 920,000 metric tons (2017: 894,000 metric tons). Shipments totaled 45,000 truckloads and 16,000 overseas containers.

We employ digital systems to support the increasing worldwide networking of supply flows. Thanks to these logistical tracking systems, we are increasingly able to track our shipments in real time worldwide and to respond promptly to any problems.