Canada's September chemicals sales fall 0.1% from August

16 November 2010 15:34  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS)--Chemicals sales in Canada fell 0.1% in September to Canadian dollar (C$) 3.708bn ($3.671bn) from August, a government statistics agency said on Tuesday.

The decline came after Statistics Canada (StatsCan) reported a 1.5% sequential increase in chemical sales in August from July.

The agency added that September chemical sales in Alberta, which is home to major plants run by Dow Chemical, NOVA Chemicals, Shell and others, rose 6.7% from August.

Compared with September 2009, overall Canadian chemical sales were up 9.0%, the agency said.

Canadian sales of plastics and rubber products in September 2010 fell 1.8% to C$1.73bn from August but were up 4.7% from September 2009.

Overall, Canadian manufacturing sales in September totalled C$45.09bn, down 0.6% from August, with the decline mainly due to the transportation equipment industry in central Canada, the agency said.

Compared with September 2009, overall manufacturing sales were up 9.1%.

New manufacturing orders in September totalled C$44.03bn, down 4.9% from August but up 9.2% from September 2009.

Manufacturing inventory levels in September were C$60.52bn, down 0.2% from August and up 1.4% from September 2009.

The overall manufacturing inventory-to-sales ratio was 1.34 in September, unchanged from August but down from 1.44 in September 2009.

In related industry news, Canadian chemical railcar shipments for the year-to-date period to 6 November were up 23.4% to 637,551, from 516,765 in 2009.

($1 = C$1.01)

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