Petroleum and coal boost manufacturing

Petroleum and coal boost manufacturing

8 March 2018

Higher sales volumes for petroleum and coal product manufacturing helped boost manufacturing in the December 2017 quarter, Stats NZ said today.

The total volume of manufacturing sales rose 1.0 percent in the December 2017 quarter compared with the September 2017 quarter, when adjusted for seasonal effects. This follows a 0.4 percent rise in the September 2017 quarter.

Seven of the 13 manufacturing industries saw sales rise in the December 2017 quarter. The largest movements were petroleum and coal product manufacturing, up 17 percent, and meat and dairy product manufacturing, down 2.8 percent.

"The December 2017 quarter's rise in petroleum and coal product manufacturing follows falls in the June and September quarters," manufacturing manager Sue Chapman said. "This is the largest percentage rise since December 2008, and the third-largest since the series began."

The petroleum and coal manufacturing series is not seasonally adjusted, as it does not have a stable seasonal pattern. It is not unusual for this industry to show large movements from quarter to quarter. The predominant activities in the industry include automotive fuel manufacturing, aviation fuel manufacturing, oil manufacturing, and petroleum refining and blending.

Meat and dairy product manufacturing sales seasonally fell in the December 2017 quarter, with sales volumes down 2.8 percent. This followed a 0.7 percent fall in the September quarter.

Overseas trade indexes (prices and volumes): December 2017 quarter (provisional) reported that the dairy export volume fell 4.6 percent, while the meat export volume rose 13 percent in the quarter.

Although volumes fell, sales values for the quarter were up 3.9 percent ($315 million), reflecting increases in both meat and dairy product prices.

Business price indexes: December 2017 quarter reported a 5.3 percent rise for dairy product manufacturing output prices, and a 4.0 percent rise for meat and meat product manufacturing output prices.

The actual volume of total manufacturing sales was up 1.4 percent from the previous December quarter. When price changes are included, the value of manufacturing sales was $29.6 billion in the December 2017 quarter, up $2.7 billion from the December 2016 quarter.

Authorised by Liz MacPherson, Government Statistician, 8 March 2018.

For more information about these statistics:

• Visit Economic survey of manufacturing: December 2017 quarter

• See CSV files for download

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