Germany’s BASF SE , the world’s largest chemical company by revenue, and Russia’s OAO Gazprom have called off an asset-swap deal amid mounting political tensions between Russia and the West, BASF said Thursday. The collapse of the deal means BASF now expects an only “slightly higher” increase in earnings before interest and taxes for 2014, rather than the “considerable rise” the company previously forecast, as it won’t collect expected income from the transaction. BASF had planned to divest itself of the gas trading and storage business of its wholly owned oil and gas subsidiary Wintershall AG as part of an asset exchange with Russian state gas group Gazprom that was scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. The trade, announced in November 2012, would have given Wintershall access to natural-gas fields in Siberia. “Due to the current difficult political environment, BASF and Gazprom have decided not […]