EU chemicals production in February dropped 2.3% year on year while the overall EU chemicals industry confidence indicator continued to deteriorate in April, mainly due to lower order-book assessments, industry body Cefic said Thursday.
The production index for February was dragged down by specialty chemicals, which dropped 4.2% year on year during the month. Lower overall production was also affected by petrochemicals, down 1.5% in February compared with February 2012. Basic inorganics and consumer chemicals production decreased 1.2% and 1.1% respectively in February. Polymers output registered no significant changes, Cefic said.
EU chemicals prices in February rose by 1.1% on year, driven by the price for plastics, which increased by 3.0%.
Prices climbed for consumer chemicals by 1.2% while pharmaceuticals prices edged down by 0.1% on the year.
For the first two months of the year, chemicals production fell 1.7%, Cefic, or the European Chemical Industry Council, said in its latest Chemicals Trends Report. Chemicals production in January-February remained 8.1% below the 2007 peak, the council said. EU chemicals producer prices recorded a 1.8% rise in the first two months of the year compared to the same two-month period of 2012. Production and producer price figures for March were not available.
The deterioration of the overall EU chemicals industry confidence indicator in April was the third straight month of decline, Cefic said, adding that data showed sales were slightly lower in January 2013 compared with January 2012, but stood 3.5% higher than the pre-crisis peak in 2008.
Meanwhile, the EU chemicals industry capacity utilization level fell marginally to 78.3% in the first quarter of 2013, from 78.8% in Q4 2012.
Employment in the EU chemical sector for the whole 2012 was 0.1% lower than 2011. Fourth-quarter employment fell to 1.15 million, a decline of 0.5% compared with Q3 2012, and 8.2% below the pre-crisis level in Q1 2008.
