Lower prices for gasoline helped push down the total value of Alberta-based manufacturing sales in August.

Adjusted for regular seasonal variation, Alberta’s manufacturers shipped $8.8 billion worth of products in August compared to $9.1 billion in July for a drop of 3.1%.

Petroleum and coal product manufacturing sales slipped by $190 million in August followed by chemicals (down by $77 million) and paper (down by $45 million).

Food manufacturers posted the largest monthly gain in absolute terms with sales $106 million higher in August than in July followed by computer and electronic product manufacturing (up by $11 million) and the miscellaneous category (up by $5 million).

Despite the monthly pullback, (unadjusted) year-to-date sales in 2022 were much higher than in 2021 with sales over the first eight months of the year 31% higher than the same period last year.

As with the monthly decline, the year-to-date improvement was led by petroleum and coal product manufacturing with a year-to-date rise in sales of $10.8 billion.

National manufacturing sales fell by 2.0% in August. This was the fourth monthly decline in a row. Year-to-date sales, however, were up by 20% compared to 2021. 

Answer to the previous trivia question: NGL stands for natural gas liquid. NGLs include ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and pentanes plus. NGLs are created by removing them from natural gas and are considered distinct from liquified natural gas (LNG, which is mostly methane.

Today’s trivia question: Who is credited with inventing stereolithography (a.k.a. 3-D printing)?