Freight of Chemical Products

Historically, freight of chemical products has exhibited volatility. However, one noteworthy year was 2009, when freight of chemical products fell 31.8%, as downstream market activity dropped substantially because of the global financial crisis. While the coronavirus affected the Canadian economy in 2020, this metric still rose 2.7%. With the economy reopening, industrial users demanding more chemical products increased, but with moderate volatility. While downstream industries require chemicals as part of their production processes, growth remained tempered as the chemical industry experienced a slump in employment levels driven by the shutdowns from the previous year, which prevented production growth for certain chemicals from breaching past pre-pandemic levels.

Employment in the chemical industry declined in 2021 from 2020, while productivity in both years has remained level, according to the Chemical Industry Association of Canada, which nevertheless pressured production in the year. With a solid inflationary environment in 2022, freight activity to carry chemicals slumped by 3.3%. While more demand in the period helped boost industries in the year, higher prices and costs affected how much downstream industries acquire without these increases from encroaching on their gains. For the chemical industry, prices remained enormously elevated in the year, which affected demand in the period as sales of these materials remained lower than in pre-pandemic years, according to data from Statistics Canada. The inflationary environment provided a slight bump in sales from the year before, but not enough to break past pre-pandemic levels as the price hikes reflect production being pressured to produce more to satisfy market activity, which kept freight carrying levels lower in reflection of these developments. In turn, freight-carrying activity declined in the year to reflect this environment. In 2023 however, freight-carrying activity has risen 3.8%, under the scope of a thriving economy that has been trading and producing more in the year, despite having a few slowdowns in these variables now that inflation has not been slowing down. But, as downstream sectors have been under more pressure to deliver as the market for various goods have been scaling up, freight activity of chemicals has been able to scale up. This has boosted freight activity for 2024 and 2025.