Capacity use for Canada’s chemical industry increased slightly from 79.9% to 80.1% for the second quarter of this year. Statistics Canada reports a big increase in pharmaceutical and medicines production in the second quarter against a decrease in basic chemical production. The decrease in basic chemicals production did not offset the gains from pharmaceuticals resulting in the 0.2 percentage point increase.
Output from the petrochemicals sector was stable with no real change from the first quarter. The inorganic chemical sector recorded a small increase production of pesticides, fertilizers, and paints & coatings. There was also a small increase in products from the soaps and cleaning products preparations sector. A decrease of 3.8 percentage points was recorded for the other chemical products sector.