{"id":17129,"date":"2026-09-16T01:49:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/?p=17129"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:54:19","slug":"plastics-report-softer-shipments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/plastics-report-softer-shipments\/","title":{"rendered":"Plastics Report: Softer Shipments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Plastics Industry Association Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES) released its second-quarter 2026 report, showing softer shipment activity alongside stronger new orders and broader growth in U.S. equipment investment.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15715\" style=\"width: 1160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15715\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15715\" src=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1150\" height=\"478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04.png 1150w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04-768x319.png 768w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04-400x166.png 400w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04-440x183.png 440w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04-650x270.png 650w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-16-at-11.46.04-914x380.png 914w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1150px) 100vw, 1150px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-15715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Since 1937, The Plastics Industry Association has been working to make its members, and the eighth largest U.S. manufacturing industry, more globally competitive.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Primary plastics machinery shipments totaled an estimated $235.8 million in Q2. While shipments remained soft, stronger new orders and increased U.S. equipment investment point to a strengthening pipeline for machinery demand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The report also found:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Twin-screw extrusion machinery shipments increased 25.4% from Q1.<\/li>\n<li>39% of CES survey respondents expect market conditions to improve over the next 12 months.<\/li>\n<li>U.S. plastics machinery exports totaled $755.8 million in Q2, generating a $480.3 million trade surplus, a 24.1% increase from a year earlier.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe combination of strong industrial equipment orders and modest shipments could be interpreted as a sign of strengthening pipeline demand rather than immediate weakness in market conditions. The lag between orders and shipments helps explain the softer shipment numbers,\u201d said Perc Pineda, Ph.D., Chief Economist at the Plastics Industry Association.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17131\" style=\"width: 1076px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17131\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17131\" src=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1066\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1.png 1066w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-768x461.png 768w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-400x240.png 400w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-383x230.png 383w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-440x264.png 440w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-641x385.png 641w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-541x325.png 541w, https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-13.45.37-1-633x380.png 633w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1066px) 100vw, 1066px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-17131\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The continued weakness in shipments primarily reflects the normal lag between new orders and<br \/>deliveries for capital equipment.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Plastics Industry Association Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES) released its second-quarter 2026 report, showing softer shipment activity alongside stronger new orders and broader growth in U.S. equipment investment. Primary plastics machinery shipments totaled an estimated $235.8 million in Q2. While shipments remained soft, stronger new orders and increased U.S. equipment investment point to a&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/plastics-report-softer-shipments\/\" class=\"excerpt-read-more\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10],"tags":[41,8235],"class_list":["post-17129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage-featured","category-news","tag-plastics","tag-plastics-industry-association"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Plastics Report: Softer Shipments - Find A Distributor Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.findadistributor.com\/news\/plastics-report-softer-shipments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Plastics Report: Softer Shipments - Find A Distributor Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Plastics Industry Association Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES) released its second-quarter 2026 report, showing softer shipment activity alongside stronger new orders and broader growth in U.S. equipment investment. 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