Ink market prices - can't see the end

Once label manufacturers have suffered tremendous pressure from global ink processors and retailers on the costs and services, so the recent rising price of ink and coating oil is not bad news.

Ink manufacturers now signal that they will further increase production and processing costs due to the significant increase in raw material costs. According to a report by the British Coatings Federation (BCF), this is mainly due to a shortage of chemical agents worldwide, which are key ingredients in the production of inks. As of now, the rising prices of crude oil and petrochemical derivatives are the main reasons for the rise in ink prices. However, even if the price of oil falls, the ink industry will suffer from a shortage of chemical raw materials, especially raw materials such as nitrocellulose, acrylic acid, acetic acid, and titanium dioxide, and the price of ink will continue to rise.

The BCF estimated that due to the increase in the cost of raw materials, the economic loss of the world's ink production industry reached 200 million euros in 2004, and this trend has continued until 2005. The following are examples of increased raw material costs: more than 20% ethyl acetate, 5% acrylic resin in 2004, 7% in 2005, 20% acrylic acid, 32% ethylene, and 10% UV resin.

All inks will bear the pressure of high pigment prices caused by the price increase of petroleum derivatives. Thermosetting inks, coldset inks, and traditional sheetfed inks will be affected by significant increases in mineral oil and vegetable oil prices. However, packaging inks such as solvent-based inks, water-based inks, UV-curable inks, and varnish may be subject to pressure from rising raw material prices.

Sun Chemical (Europe) announced at the beginning of the year that due to the price increase of petrochemical products, packaging inks and varnish will increase by 3-7%. Michael Griem, vice president of the company, predicts that key materials such as titanium dioxide, resins and acrylic derivatives will be in short supply. He warned that many products are waiting for distribution, and there is no hope for prices to fall back. In addition, Griem believes that there are longer-term factors that affect the increased costs of environmental management, shipping, packaging, and inflation control.

The situation in North America is almost the same. For example, Flint recently announced price increases for inks, where packaging inks have risen by 5-7% to cope with the increase in transportation, energy, and raw material costs, which are indispensable for ink production and distribution.

Flint claims that price increases are unavoidable. Since January, as crude oil prices have risen by 65% ​​and natural gas has risen by 67%, raw material prices have risen by 9% for ethylene and 190% for benzene.

The shortage of key raw materials and the rising price of petrochemical derivatives have even affected paper products. At the end of last year, the Cham Paper Group warned that the paper industry must be seriously concerned about energy, raw materials and the actual costs of transportation. Cham Paper is a key supplier of a European pressure sensitive label and wet glue label. According to it, in less than a year, it is used to produce and distribute oil-based materials on the chain, which makes the cost The increase is greater than 50%.

Naturally, as tag manufacturers have suffered economically, there is a certain degree of cynicism in their words when ink prices are announced to rise. Some people suspect that ink suppliers are using plagiarism vigorously, but the trend of raw materials that they say is easy to confirm. There is no hope for the price to fall back and it seems to be stuck in a quagmire.

It is also natural that label makers cannot pass on price increases to their customers because the schedule on the agenda is for a drop in the price of each label, never to rise. The only solution is to increase the value of the product by taking measures for other aspects of label production, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and reducing inventory costs. For those manufacturers who are committed to the production of pure goods labels, the subsequent series of price increases has caused the profits of enterprises to drop substantially. This is undoubtedly a fatal blow.