Canadian industries operated at 81.7 percent of their production capacity in the fourth quarter of 2018, down from an upwardly revised 82.8 percent in the third quarter. This was the second consecutive quarterly decline, below market expectations of 81.9 percent. Lower capacity utilization in manufacturing, construction, mining and quarrying, and forestry and logging more than offset increases in electric power generation, transmission and distribution, and oil and gas extraction. The average capacity utilization rate of Canadian industries rose 1.2 percentage points to 82.8% in 2018, after increasing 2.4 percentage points in 2017, mainly due to a rebound in the oil and gas extraction subsector in the first half of the year. Capacity Utilization in Canada averaged 82.93 percent from 1987 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 87.30 percent in the first quarter of 1988 and a record low of 72.70 percent in the second quarter of 2009.