Manufacturing sales volumes fall

WELLINGTON: New Zealand manufacturing sales volumes had their biggest quarterly decline in five years as the Marsden Point oil refinery shut down for maintenance and an outage reduced output from the Pohokura gas field.

The volume of manufacturing sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.2% in the three months ended June 30, compared with a 1% expansion in the March quarter, Statistics New Zealand said. The smaller volume was driven by an 8% slide in petroleum and coal product manufacturing sales and a 7.9% decline in chemical, polymer and rubber product manufacturing.

The period covered New Zealand Refining’s planned maintenance shutdown at the Marsden Point refinery, which dragged on longer than expected. It also included an extended outage at the Pohokura field, which restricted operations by methanol producer Methanex.

‘‘The fall in petroleum product manufacturing was a consequence of the maintenance shutdown at the Marsden Point refinery,’’ manufacturing statistics manager Sue Chapman said. ‘‘The fall coincided with an unscheduled outage and maintenance of a processing plant, resulting in gas restrictions affecting methanol production.’’

The manufacturing survey is the final tranche of secondtier data economists will use to firm up their forecasts for secondquarter gross domestic product. New Zealand’s economy expanded 0.5% in the March quarter and the Reserve Bank estimates it grew at that same pace in the June quarter.

The manufacturing survey’s shrinking sales volumes are in line with the BNZBusinessNZ performance of manufacturing index through the same period. The PMI registered slowing growth in production, finished stocks and deliveries through the June quarter. The July reading deteriorated further.

Still, yesterday’s figures show the value of manufacturing sales rose 1.8%, after a 0.7% increase in March. Unadjusted sales values rose 6.1% to $28.2 billion in the quarter from a year earlier, while the volume of sales increased 1.6%. New Zealand’s terms of trade are near a record as a weaker kiwi has offset declines in commodity prices.

The volume of meat and dairy production sales rose a seasonally adjusted 1.6% in the June quarter, slowing from a 2.1% pace in March. The value of sales climbed 4.5%.

The volume of finished goods inventories shrank 14% in the quarter, while the value of raw material inventories rose 3.8%. — BusinessDesk