STEM - General Research Guide: Prices / Companies / Industries

Prices, Company and Industry Information

Below are resources to help you find economic-related information, including prices of chemicals and materials, and company and industry information.

Most suppliers do not publish bulk prices on their website and will only provide a quote upon request. You may need to expand your search for recent articles in the broader news databases like Nexis Uni, Materials Science and Engineering Database, and Business Source Complete. Consider adding words like economic, outlook, market, costs, and pricing to your search. For more in-depth information on these topics, see our Market Research & Entrepreneurship guide.

ChemAnalyst
Short, quarterly (recent, but not real-time) market overviews for 400+ chemicals and commodities. Most of the other content, including deeper market analyses and industry reports, are paywalled.

SciFinder
From the CAS Registry substance records in SciFinder, you can browse suppliers from the thousands of chemical suppliers, which you can also customize to see preferred vendors first. Purity, stock status, and shipping times are often included along with costs and amounts, with a link back to the vendor so you can verify current costs and availability. Most of the pricing is for small amounts only, maybe a few kilograms or liters at best, but no bulk pricing. First-time users will need to register.
Reaxys
Commercial supplier information can be found in the substance record (shopping cart icon). Suppliers, with purity, cost, and availability are posted, along with a link to their website. As with SciFinder, the amounts listed are small and bulk pricing is not included.
Nexis Uni
Full-text database for newspapers, trade journals, industry news, and company information. Includes ICIS Chemical News, which includes 1-2 page economic profiles of key chemicals and regions (e.g. Europe PVC or Asia Methanol). You can also run your search, and then limit by industry (like chemicals) and timeline if you want to limit to more recent articles.
Materials Science & Engineering Database
Full-text database of scholarly sources and trade publications that cover the chemical and engineering industries like Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering Progress, and Engineering News Record.
Business Source Complete
Abstracts and full-text covers of business journals, magazines and industry reports, including the chemical industry.

National Minerals Information Center - USGS
A wealth of economic information on minerals, including historic data and mineral industry reports by country. Publications include: Mineral Commodity Summaries, Mineral Industry Surveys, Minerals Yearbook, and the Metal Industry Indicators.

Gale Business Insights
Information on companies and industries from business and trade journals, academic journals, industry reports, newspapers, newsletters, and classic business reference sources.