BUSINESS
Top 100 Chemical Producers: 1985 Sales, Profits Decline for Most Of 100 largest companies, 54 reported lower sales, 50 lower operating profits from chemicals last year compared with 1984 William J. Storck, David Webber C&EN New York
The all-but-moribund agriculture business and shrinking oil prices helped keep sales volume down and the marketplace resistant to chemi cal product price increases last year. With those and other factors offset ting improvements in other sectors of the economy, sales and operat ing profits from chemical operations at the 100 biggest chemical produc ers mostly declined in 1985. Of the 50 largest members of C&EN's list of the Top 100 chemi cal producers, 30 recorded lower chemical sales and 33 lower chemi cal operating profits as a percent age of total operating profits in 1985 compared with 1984. In the group comprising the smaller 50 chemical producers on the list, 24 reported a decline in chemical sales and 23 had a drop in chemical operating prof its as a share of total operating prof its. Chemical operating profit is cal culated by subtracting administra tive expenses and cost of sales from chemical sales. Despite some trading of places, the same companies comprised the top 10 members of the list in terms of chemical sales in 1985 as in 1984. Du Pont continued to head the list, although its lead over second-place Dow Chemical shrank considerably. In 1985, Du Pont's chemical sales dropped 6.3%, and Dow's fell just 0.9%. On the other hand, Du Pont's chemical operating profit, down
21.4% from 1984's $1.11 billion, de clined less than did Dow's, down 44.5% from the previous year's $741 million. Atlantic Richfield moved up to sixth place from eighth on the list at the expense of Shell Oil, which dropped a notch to seventh, and Celanese, which also moved down a notch to eighth in terms of chem ical sales. Amoco and W. R. Grace traded places on the list, with Amoco rising to ninth while Grace subsid ed to 10th.
A number of new entries appear on this year's Top 100 list of chemi cal producers. Chesebrough-Pond's, for instance, became a chemical pro ducer for the first time last year with its acquisition of Stauffer Chemical. The company joins the ranking in 35th place. In 1984, Stauffer, which has suffered great ly from the agriculture slump, was ranked 22nd. Among other n e w qualifiers for the list in 1985 are Vista Chemicals, 61st in size, formed by the leveraged buyout of the
Large firms dominate sales, to lesser extent earnings.
Top 50 71%
Top 50 79%
Second 50
Second 50 11%
1985 sales = $126 billion
1985 operating profits = $9.1 billion
and chemical firms prevail among types of companies Foreign owned 2%
Foreign owned β 7b
Chemical 39% Petroleum &gas 26% Diversified & other $7%
1985 sales = $126 billion
Petroleum &gas ft%
Chemical 45%
Diversified & other 34%
1985 operating profits = $9.1 billion May 5, 1986 C&EN
9
Business
Restructuring, mergers changed many rankings in 1985
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
8 6 7 10 9
Atlantic Richfield Shell Oil Celanese Amoco W. R. Grace
3,804 3,318 3,040 £906 2368
210 -1.9 -0.5 2.5 0,7
16.9 18.3 100.Ô 10,1 39.5
Petroleum Petroleum Basic chemicals Petroleum Specialty chemicals
11 12 13 14 15
34 32 11 15 13
Chevron BASF Eastman Kodak General Electric Phillips Petroleum
2,611 137.4 2,600* 14,0 2,340 - 4 . 7 2,347 10.9 2,266 - 3 . 8
6,0 1Ô0.O 22.1 8.0 14,5
Petroleum Basic chemicals Photo equipment Electrical products Petroleum
15 17 18 19 20
14 12 16 17 18
Mobil Allied-Signal Rohm & Haas American Cyanamid Hercules
2,266 - & 6 2,05$ -15.5 1,966 0,2 1,630 - 3 . 6 1,743 - 4 . 4
3,7 22.6 95.9 51.8 67.8
21 22 23 24 25
19 37 24 20 26
Air Products1 Occidental Petroleum Mobay Ciba-Geigy Borden
1,674 4.4 16219 64*6 3.Ô 1,599 1,540 - 1 3 1,532 5.6
91.5 10,4 100,0 64.2 32.5
26 27 28 29 30
23 27 25 31 28
Ashland Oil B. F. Goodrich American Hoechst FMC Ethyl
1,499 1,384 1,361* 1,261 1,242
-0.1 -2.8 -7,3 2.0 -9,0
31 32 32 34 35
21 28 30 33
36 37 38 39 40
38 42 39 40 42
International Minerals'1 National Distillers Borg-Warner CF Industries Dow Corning
41 43 44 45
57 36 46 43 44
46 47 48 48 50
45 47 48 59 52
42
10
Industry classification
Du Pont Dow Chemical Exxon Monsanto Union Carbide
$11,250 9,608
-6,3% -0.9 mw - 2 . 9 5,203* -12,8 3,961 - 4 . 7
38.2% B2A 7.3 77.1 44.0
Diversified Basic chemicals Petroleum Basic chemicals Basic chemicals
Chemical operating profits* ($ millions)
$870 411 385 477 413
Change from 1984
Chemical operating Chemical profits as Identifiable assets as % of total Operating chemical % of operating profit assets total profits margin" ($ millions) assets
!il
Chemical sales 1985 ($ millions)
Rank 19851984
Chemical Change sales as % from of total 1984 sales
-21*4%> 22.0% -44,5 64,5 3.5 -43.1 -28.7 136,9 -14.0 50.0
73* - 4 9 . 3 166 - 3 9 , 6 127 - 5 3 . 3 47$ 36.5 234 - 3 0 . 8
7J% 4,3 8,8 9.2 10.4
4.9 5.2 100,0 115 58.4
1.9 8.0 4.2 16,3 8.2
-163
m
m
$7885 8047 5337 4217 4330
34.3% 68.0 7.7 47.5 44.7
11.0% 5.1 7.2 11.3 9.5
113 2296 14.7 3891 2809 100.0 9.3 2334 1997 36.8
3.2 4.2 4.5 20.3 11.7
7.7 na 17.6 14.7 9.4
def na 8.6 12.0 16.7
