International chemical giant BASF SE said it would cut 3,700 jobs worldwide to save about $555 million as it integrates operations of the Swiss company Ciba Holding AG, which BASF acquired in April for $2.9 billion.

BASF, headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany, has 15,000 in North America, with operations based in Florham Park, N.J. The firm has production facilities in Washington and Belvidere, N.J., and a technical center in Ledgewood. All are in North Jersey.

There are other facilities around the country, as well.

Ciba has a plant in Newark, Del., that produces pigments for ink, paints and plastics. There is a research and development facility there, as well. Ciba bought the plant from DuPont in 1984, and spent $180 million modernizing it in 2000. It employs 250.

The job cuts will be completed by 2013, but most will be eliminated by the end of 2010, BASF spokeswoman Anna-Maria Diefenthal said.

She said BASF was reviewing the restructuring, sale or closure of 23 of 55 former Ciba plants, and consolidation of those remaining and 36 of Ciba's 70 sales and administrative offices and research sites with those of BASF.

"We have not yet completed the analysis of all sites, that's why I don't have any figures for the sites you mention," Diefenthal said. "But I can tell you that 26 percent of the 3,700 jobs that will be cut globally will affect Ciba sites in the Americas (North and South)."

Paper businesses will be bundled into a new paper chemicals division. Ciba coatings activities will be integrated into BASF's dispersions and pigments division; Ciba's plastic additives and water treatment operations into BASF's performance chemicals division, and its home and personal care business into BASF care chemicals division.

Decisions on where the job cuts will be made and the facilities to be closed or integrated will be made by the first quarter of 2010, she said.

"This is, unfortunately, not good news for some of our employees," BASF chairman Jurgen Hambrecht said in a statement. "I promise all our employees that we will keep the period of uncertainty as short as possible and will make decisions in a fair and transparent way."