Chemical companies produce and develop industrial chemicals through the conversion of raw materials –organic and inorganic- into a wide variety of products. Chemical production is classified into two separate categories. There are specialty batch manufacturers that produce more expensive chemicals that are less commonly used within the chemical market. These performance chemicals are often produced by smaller manufacturers. On the other hand, commodity manufacturers tend to produce a large volume of basic and inexpensive compounds. The production of organic polymers for plastics, fibers, and elastomers are a rapidly growing sector of the chemical industry.
The chemical manufacturing industry in the United States is quite prominent, with companies such as Dow, DuPont, and LyondellBasell Industries. The chemical sector in Europe is also very prominent, as demonstrated by the fact that represents a great proportion of their manufacturing trade surplus. Europe (and the European Union) is one of the largest chemical trading regions in the world. With Germany accounting for the largest share of total EU chemical revenue. Three of Germany’s chemical companies are considered some of the largest in the world. German companies BASF and Bayer are consistently among the largest earning chemical companies in the world. BASF operates on a global scale and maintains its segmental operations in chemicals, materials, surface technologies, nutrition and care, industrial solutions, and agricultural solutions. With headquarters around the world, Bayer is known for marketing heroin in the past and branding aspirin.
As highlighted in the EU Chemical industry Transition Pathway recently published by the European Commission, the chemical sector is heading towards the biggest transformation in its history. A transformation covering four different dimensions, as we go climate neutral, circular, digital while transitioning to safe and sustainable chemicals. A new interactive and customizable map shows planned and ongoing projects and investments in low-carbon technologies made by the EU chemical manufacturers. You will be able to explore the activities across different European countries and across a broad range of technologies.

Understanding these varieties of classes under chemical industry is important, since such clustering helps to design suitable policies, initiatives, and interventions more readily (Banerjee et al., 2003). The variety and extent of such chemical industries are more diverse especially in the developed countries where there are adequate opportunities for industrial growth (Arora et al., 2001). The developing countries are not much focused on the growth of their chemical industries since they are already struggle to meet the basic demands of their citizen and to maintain a sustainable economic condition.

All these different types of industrial inclusions make chemical industry a vast industry incorporating investment and supply chain management of multiple different types of industries. This is why investment and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the chemical industries are often higher than many other industries.