Industrial Chemical Manufacturing Industry Profile

Companies in this industry manufacture chemicals, which are usually separate chemical elements or separate chemically-defined compounds, using basic processes, such as thermal crackling and distillation. Major companies include BASF (Germany), Dow (US), Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (Taiwan), Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Japan), SABIC (Saudi Arabia), Shell (UK), Sinopec Group (China), and TotalEnergies (France).

The global chemical production has been forecast to grow by 2.7% from 2023 to 2025, a rate above the average for the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. China is the world's largest chemical market and will continue to drive growth in the Asia region from the Chinese automotive industry. The European Union and the US will see similar growth trajectories, driven by a rising demand in chemicals.

The US industrial chemical manufacturing industry includes about 2,500 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $220 billion. Key growth drivers include output in major end-use markets such as automotive manufacturing and construction.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand depends on the overall strength of the economy, because most industrial chemicals are used in the manufacture of more-complicated products like fibers, plastics, paints, and paper. The profitability of individual companies is closely linked to efficient operations, because most products are commodities. Big producers have large economies of scale in production, which is why some chemicals are made by just a handful of companies. Small companies can compete effectively by making ...