The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that growth in the industry has been nearly flat most of the year thus far. The headline index for July rose just 0.1 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. This follows six months of relatively stable activity after a fairly strong 4th quarter. During July, chemical production increased in Africa & the Middle East and in Asia-Pacific region. Activity was flat in Central & Eastern Europe, while production fell in North America, Latin America, and Western Europe. The Global CPRI was up 2.3 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 108.5 percent of its average 2012 levels in July.
During July, capacity utilization in the global business of chemistry declined 0.2 percentage points to 78.9 percent. This is off from 80.5 percent last July and is below the long-term (1987-2015) average of 89.2 percent.
Results were largely positive on a product basis during July. Weakness in the production of pharmaceuticals was offset by gains in agricultural chemicals, consumer products, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, plastic resins, synthetic rubber, manufactured fibers, coatings, and other specialties.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the business of chemistry for 33 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100. This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from over 65 nations accounting for about 98 percent of the total global business of chemistry. This data are the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the U.S. CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.