Plant indices

First appearing in Process Engineering in 1973, our long-running UK and International Plant Cost Indices provide important data for process design and project engineers.

For the benefit of new readers, a brief explanation of the background to the indices might help. Like most such economic indices, the UK ‘Predict’ Plant Cost Index is a composite figure, made up from four components, carefully weighted to take into account most activities involved in construction projects. In these terms, the composite index, C, is given by:

C = 0.45Eq + 0.1Ci + 0.19Cn + 0.26Di

in which Eq is the ‘Equipment Index’, Ci the ‘Civil Index’, Cn the ‘Construction, or Site, Index’, and D a ‘Design, Engineering and Administration Index’. All four component indices are in turn made up of their own sets of sub-indices.

All the PE indices are to the base 2000avr = 100, but as the OECD raw data has also recently been revised to this same base, some of the International figures have been revised. Therefore, please consider all figures given below as having been ‘revised’.

In all tables: R= revised value; P= provisional value; F= forecast value