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Global chemical production continues on soft note, ACC says

| By Scott Jenkins

Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) show that growth in global chemical production continued on a soft note in February. The ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) indicates that global chemicals production fell 0.8 percent in February, following a revised 0.7 percent drop in January and a 0.3 percent gain in December. Note that all data are on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. During February, production gains were in North America, Europe, Africa and Middle East with weakness in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The Global CPRI was up 2.0 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 114.3 percent of its average 2012 levels in February.

During February, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry eased 0.8 percentage points to 84.5 percent. This is down from 85.1 percent last February 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.