In the specialty chemicals group Lanxess, every plant manager now knows what to do if a gas embargo occurs.

"I hope it doesn't come to that, because it will paralyze entire value chains," said CEO Matthias Zachert in a conference call on Thursday.

In this case, Lanxess is the first company to estimate specific costs, at least for its own production.

The direct effect would be 80 to 120 million euros for the operating result before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda).

The indirect effects in industry due to a lack of preliminary products and later in goods for end customers cannot be calculated.

"If we stand, the industry will stand," said Zachert.

In the end, the costs are significantly higher.

Jonas Jansen

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Lanxess uses gas and coal to generate electricity and, more importantly, steam to manufacture its chemical products.

In the projection, the company calculated the demand and discovered the major impact on the locations in the chemical parks in Leverkusen, Krefeld and Dormagen.

If gas only came from the Netherlands and Norway, the company would have to reduce gas consumption by up to 50 percent - which would first and foremost shut down the gas-intensive operations.

All others would also be throttled.

"Never experienced in my career"

In the first quarter, Lanxess increased its prices by 31 percent due to increased energy costs at group level.

"I've never experienced that in my career," said Zachert.

However, there is still no sign of a weakening in demand, also because there are still catch-up effects due to the Corona crisis.

If energy prices remained at the same level, they would cost the Cologne M-Dax group 1 billion euros for the year, twice as much as in the previous year.

Lanxess still has coal-fired power plants in Leverkusen and Krefeld, but Zachert wants to stick to the exit plan in order to achieve its own climate goals.

The Lanxess boss expressed respect for the Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) for trying to reduce dependence on Russia.

However, Zachert criticized that energy policy had been handled "amateurishly" in the last 15 years.

"If I did that, I would have to be kicked out of the job."