Plastics machinery exports down 2% in Q3

North American exports of plastics machinery registered a year-over-year decrease in Q3 of 2016 according to statistics compiled and reported by the Plastics Industry Association’s (PLASTICS’) Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES). This was the first quarterly decline since 3Q 2015, and it was only the second time there was a quarterly decrease since the recovery started in 2010.

 

Preliminary estimates showed shipments of primary plastics equipment (injection molding, extrusion, and blow molding equipment) for reporting companies reached $294.7 million in the third quarter. This was 2.4 percent lower than the total of $302.0 million from Q3 of 2015, and it was 6.5 percent less than the $315.3 million from Q2 of 2016. For the year to date, shipments of primary plastics equipment are still up 4.7 percent when compared with the first three quarters of 2015.

 

"Shipments of plastics equipment rose steadily during the six year period from 2010 through 2015, but this trend hit a plateau in 2016. The quarterly comparison will be difficult in the fourth quarter of this year, so the annual growth rate will continue to moderate in the near-term. But the incentives to invest in new equipment remain strong, and if Congress passes some meaningful corporate tax reform in 2017, they may even improve.” according to Bill Wood, of Mountaintop Economics & Research, Inc. Wood is the plastics market economist who analyzes and reports on the plastics machinery market for the CES.

 

Broken down by sector, there is typically some variance in the quarterly growth rates, and the third quarter was no exception. The shipments value of injection molding machinery decreased 6.0 percent in Q3 of this year when compared with the total from Q3 of 2015. The shipments value of single-screw extruders decreased 3.8 percent in Q3 when compared with Q3 of 2015.  The shipments value of twin-screw extruders (which includes both co-rotating and counter-rotating machines) jumped 27.6 percent in Q3 when compared with last year. The shipments value of blow molding machines was not disclosed for this quarter.

 

New bookings of auxiliary equipment for reporting companies totaled $119.8 million dollars in Q3 of 2016. This represented a rise of 0.7 percent over the total from Q3 of 2015, but it was a drop of 3.0 percent when compared with the total from Q2 of this year.

 

The moderate decline in the CES machinery data in the third quarter was still better than the performance posted in the quarter for the entire industrial machinery industry. According to data compiled by the Census Bureau, the total value for new orders of US industrial machinery dropped 8.0% in Q3 of 2016 when compared with the total from Q3 of 2015. This followed a rise of 6.8 percent in the first half of this year.

 

Another macro-indicator of demand for plastics machinery is compiled and reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) as part of the US GDP dataset. According to the BEA, business investment in industrial equipment increased 4.1 percent (seasonally-adjusted, annualized rate) in Q3 of 2016 when compared with Q3 of 2015. This followed a gain of 3.0 percent in the first half of this year.