Chemical recovery is slow

U .S. chemical production continued its post-hurricane recovery in November, but has yet to get back to levels seen prior to the storms or to those of November 2004, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Federal Reserve Board. The production index for all chemicals for November was 101.3, up 2.0% from the previous month but still down 1.4% from August before the hurricanes struck and off 2.7% from November 2004. Output of the important basic chemicals sector rose 12.2% from October to an index of 91.4 as plants came back onstream but was still down 6.0% from August and 14.3% from November a year earlier.