Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) show that the global chemical industry ended the second quarter on a good note. ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that global chemicals production rose 0.4 percent in June, following a 0.9 percent gain in May and drops in the first quarter. Note that all data are measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. During June, production gains were again across the board among regions with Latin America stable. After softness earlier in the year, the Global CPRI was up only 0.7 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 115.4 percent of its average 2012 levels in June.
“Overall the industry continues it’s positive momentum,” said Brian Gallagher, Vice President, Marketing with O’Neal, an integrated design and construction firm that provides services in the chemical industry. “These numbers are down slightly compared to 2017, but many of our clients are moving forward with their plans to increase their production capacity.”
During June, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry gained 0.1 percentage points to 84.5 percent. This is down from 86.2 percent last June and below the long-term (1987-2017) average of 86.5 percent.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the chemical industry 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 chemical industry. This data are the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the US CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.
