Facts & F i g U r e S for the US. Chemical Industry Last year was a generally healthy one for the U.S. chemical industry. The industry's plants turned out more chemical products than ever before, by a comfortable margin. Sales and earnings were well ahead of the year before. Foreign trade was strongly in the black. Nevertheless, selling prices, productivity, and profitability remain persistent problems. The impact of all these developments is evident in the statistics on the pages of Facts & Figures, the annual report on the chemical industry that C&EN has published since 1956. The data used to make up the following graphs and tables have been drawn from a variety of sources, among them government agencies, trade associations, and the companies themselves that form the diverse chemical industry. These data, in many cases, have been treated by the C&EN staff to develop analytical measures and comparisons to better indicate how the industry has performed during the past decade of significant expansion and change. Facts & Figures is divided into four sections that cover the operations of the U.S. chemical industry specifically, one section dealing with world trade in chemicals, and a final section that presents statistics from three foreign areas with important chemical industries: Canada, Western Europe, and Japan.
32 C&EN June 11,1979
Section one: Production Output of the U.S. chemical industry. Growth trends. Fifty chemicals produced in greatest volume. Organics and inorganics. Plastics. Man-made fibers. Rubber. Fertilizers. Minerals. 34 Section two: Finance Sales and earnings of the U.S. chemical industry. Product and stock prices. Analysis of company performance. Balance sheet and cash flow figures. Capital spending. R&D outlays. Fifty largest producers of chemicals. Individual company data. 46 Section three: Performance Trends in productivity and labor costs in the chemical industry. Plant capacity and operating rates for major chemicals. 58 Section four: Employment Job trends in the chemical industry. Employment by industry sectors and by company. Workweek. Wage rates. Rates of unemployment. 60 Section five: Foreign trade World trade in chemicals. U.S. trade balance and share of world trade. U.S. chemical exports and imports by products and areas. 62 Section six: Foreign chemical industries Production of chemicals in Canada, Europe, and Japan. Industry trends. Company results. Foreign trade. Price trends. 64
Special Report
Facts & Figures at a glance Overall output of chemical products increased 6% last year in the U.S. The rise paralleled that of all U.S. industry and also was in line with the chemical industry's own longer-term growth rate. Plastics maintained their position as the fastest growing sector of the industry; growth was slowest for some inorganic products. Production expanded at a more rapid rate, by and large, for basic organic chemicals than for inorganics. But sulfuric acid had an unusually strong year. High-density polyethylene and epoxy and urea resins set the pace for the plastics. Nylon and olefins made good gains among man-made fibers. An unimpressive performance by SBR dimmed growth for synthetic rubber. Lower domestic demand held down output of fertilizers, despite sharp boosts in nitrogen and phosphate exports. Chemical companies boosted their dollar volume about 12% last year, even though their ability to raise prices was limited. And profits kept pace with the rise in volume, ending a three-year slide in the industry's profitability. But margins and return on net worth remain well under the levels of the mid1970's. Capital spending by the U.S. chemical industry is slated for a healthy expansion this year, both at home and abroad. For the entire industry, outlays for new plant in the U.S. will rise nearly $1 billion, the biggest annual increase in five years, to top $8 billion. Funds plowed into R&D by the industry also continue to increase steadily, although barely
fast enough to keep ahead of inflation. But R&D support is claiming a shrinking share of the industry's sales dollar. Productivity is improving faster in the chemical industry than in manufacturing industries as a whole, but the rate of improvement has been slackening. Meanwhile, unit labor costs have been climbing faster than usual. However, the industry recently has been operating its plants closer to capacity than at any time in the past few years. Employment has been expanding slowly but steadily in the chemical industry since 1975. Last year's gain, although less than 2%, was enough to set new highs both for all employees and for blue-collar workers. World trade in chemicals rose 18% last year, but the U.S. share of the total slipped a bit. However, the U.S. balance of trade in chemicals continues to widen—and now is nearing $7 billion—even though imports are rising at a somewhat faster clip than exports. For chemical industries abroad, business generally improved somewhat in 1978 but was hardly robust. In Canada, shipments of chemicals scored a 22% gain, although the industry's profits remain lackluster. Major European producers also weathered a year of low profitability; production, moreover, was up only moderately. In Japan, on the other hand, chemical output rose 12%, with plastics and petrochemicals chalking up the biggest growth.
