Abstract
Like companies everywhere, US chemical makers were buffeted last year by COVID-19. Lockdowns due to the pandemic slowed economic activity to a crawl, and firms scrambled to respond by cutting capital spending and other costs. The pandemic’s effects are reflected in C&EN’s latest survey of the top 50 US chemical producers, which is based on data from 2020. The 50 firms combined for $250.9 billion in chemical sales, 10.1% lower than what they had posted a year earlier. Profits declined even more sharply. The 46 firms that report chemical operating income combined for $24.8 billion, down 15.6%. The results were worse in the depths of the pandemic, in April and May of last year. Many chemical companies saw chemical sales fall more than 20% in the second quarter last year. For example, Dow reported a sales drop of 24.2% in the period, compared with a 10.3% decline for the full
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