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April 19, 2007
The chemical processing industry (CPI) of the United States has continued to outperform expectations of many over the past several years, despite plant closures, company mergers and the loss of an estimated 22,000 jobs. At this time last year, Industrial Info was tracking approximately 3,575 operational CPI plants located in the United States as part of its North American Plant Database employing more than 494,000 people. Those numbers have declined over the past year to 3,504 CPI plants as of April 2007, employing an estimated 472,000 people.
Click to view cpi10Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the top ten CPI employers in the U.S.
Despite the sharp decline in employment counts, the CPI has experienced an increase in total capital and maintenance spending for the past several years and currently enjoys a Confidence Factor of 71.6 percent. The Confidence Factor measures the number of active and completed projects against cancelled project activity over a five-year span to determine the level of confidence in future projects maturing and moving forward. The CPI holds the fifth-highest confidence factor in comparison to all of the 12 industries tracked by Industrial Info in the United States. The ability to achieve productivity increases through reliability and energy efficiency upgrades has played a key role in aiding the CPI to be more productive with less, especially in a time where feedstock and energy costs continue to increase.
The top 10 employers of the CPI in the United States employ an estimated 18.4 percent, nearly 86,900 at 143 individual plant locations, of all CPI jobs. These numbers are down slightly from last year when the top 10 employers represented 91,500 jobs and 19 percent of the industry’s employment. Little changed in the list of top ten employers since this time last year with the exception of Lyondell Chemical Corporation joining the list with just more than 4,900 people employed.
Looking to the rest of this year, Industrial Info is tracking only a handful of plants with closure dates already identified and the employment loss should be minimal, roughly 1,600 jobs in total. It is early in the year and the effect of still unannounced mergers, acquisitions and buyouts is unknown to the CPI although expectations are nothing drastic will unfold. Huntsman Corporation has openly said they will consider the sale of some assets while Dow Chemical Company has made it clear they are not in the market to discuss any dramatic changes in their ownership or portfolio after several rumors emerged over the past couple of months.
Industrial Info Resources provides marketing communication services ranging from industrial database solutions to market forecasting, custom analytics and specialty promotions. For more information, visit www.industrialinfo.com.
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