Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) shows that growth in global chemical production started 2018 on a neutral note. ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that global chemicals production was stable in January, following a 0.3 percent gain in December and a 0.6 percent gain in November. Note that all data are on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis.
During January, production gains were mixed with growth in Europe, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Africa-Middle East region offsetting declines elsewhere. The Global CPRI was up 3.4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 116.4 percent of its average 2012 levels in November.
During January, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry slipped 0.2 percentage points to 86.2 percent. This is up from 85.2 percent last January but is below the long-term (1987-2017) average of 86.5 percent.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the chemical industry for 32 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 U.S. CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.