BASF raised its full-year adjusted core earnings outlook to 7.4 billion to 7.8 billion euros after third-quarter sales of 16.4 billion euros beat a company-compiled consensus, while its agricultural unit's sales fell 20%.
BASF raised its 2026 profit outlook for the second time this year on Wednesday after third-quarter results came in ahead of market expectations. The German chemicals group now expects full-year adjusted core earnings, measured as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation before special items, of between 7.4 billion euros and 7.8 billion euros, up from the 6.9 billion to 7.7 billion euro range it gave in July.
Third-quarter sales reached 16.4 billion euros, ahead of the 15.67 billion euro figure in a poll of analysts compiled by the company. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation before special items rose 15% from a year earlier to 1.6 billion euros, and the company said all of its core businesses contributed to the result. Higher prices did most of the work, helping offset rising energy costs, with volumes also improving.
The backdrop matters as much as the numbers. Reporting on the results links the stronger demand for European chemical suppliers to disruptions in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which pushed buyers toward local producers and supported pricing even as energy costs climbed. That situational boost is part of why the guidance raise, rather than the sales beat alone, is the figure investors will use to rebuild forecasts for BASF and its European peers.
The company's own account of the quarter is not uniformly strong. Its agricultural business, which sells seeds and pesticides and competes with Bayer, Corteva and China's Syngenta, recorded a 20% fall in sales from a year earlier, the one clear weak spot in the release. BASF still aims to list that business on the Frankfurt stock exchange by mid-2027, and it kept its full-year free cash flow estimate at between 1.5 billion euros and 2.3 billion euros.
The check on the headline figures is straightforward: the raised guidance range, the 16.4 billion euro sales figure and the agricultural decline appear in both the Reuters account and the Dow Jones account of the company's statement, with the same July comparison range in both. Where the two accounts use different earnings measures, this story uses only the before-special-items measure, so the profit figure is not mixed with the separate reported earnings figure.
The next test comes at the investor conference on the same day and in the fourth quarter, when the question will be how much of the demand strength survives if Middle East supply routes reopen and energy costs ease. For now, BASF has narrowed and lifted its range at both ends, a signal that management expects the stronger pricing to last into the end of the year.