Plastic additive manufacturers expand their prices and release pressure

Since this year, stimulated by the rebound in production in the automotive industry and packaging industry, the demand for global plastics products has grown strongly, which in turn has led to a rapid increase in the demand for plastic additives. Experts predict that by 2014, the global plastic additives market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5%. The strong growth in market demand has prompted the global plastic additive manufacturers to announce plans for energy expansion, and also started a series of product price increases. According to the manufacturer, the rapid increase in the cost of raw materials is a major factor in the price increase of plastic additives.

Park Chung-yeon, president and CEO of Korea's Matsubara Industries Co., Ltd., said that the plastic additives market has been out of the shadow of the financial crisis and the current market is stronger than expected, mainly due to the strong growth in China's demand. Current U.S. and European installations are producing at full capacity to meet the growing demand in China and the Middle East. Matsubara's expansion plans will be mainly in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Park Jong-soo said: “Because of the strong market demand, we are seriously considering the possibility of expanding the production capacity of antioxidants.” Antioxidants accounted for 57% of the total business volume of Matsubara Industries. However, Park Chung-ho refused to disclose the specific expansion plan, but said that the company hopes to expand in the Middle East, because more and more plastic manufacturers in the Middle East, the growing demand for additives. Matsubara recently established sales offices in China and India, but there are no plastic additives production facilities in these two countries. These areas will be the first choice for their future expansion.

Another global plastic additives manufacturer, Khmeriya, plans to expand antioxidants and light stabilizers globally to meet the needs of the Asia Pacific and Middle East markets. Koteliya also announced earlier this year the expansion of the alkylphenol production capacity, which is a major raw material for the production of antioxidants. Cortiy said that the company will build a new phosphite antioxidant production line in its existing production bases in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In February of this year, Couture Asia and the Taiwan Changchun Group of China signed an agreement on the production of phenolic antioxidants. This summer, Chemtura completed the first phase of the phosphite series of antioxidant expansion plans in Asia Pacific and the Middle East. The second phase of capacity expansion will be completed in 2011. In addition, the company also plans to increase the production of alkylphenols in France.

Albemarle has a strong presence in the field of brominated flame retardants. The company earlier this year agreed to supply some flame retardants and brominated products to Comulia. The products involved in the supply agreement signed by both parties include decabromodiphenylethane, decabromodiphenyl ether, bromopropane and sodium bromide.

Due to the double stimulus of rising demand and rising raw material costs, this year global plastics additive manufacturers have launched several rounds of price increases. Albemarle’s latest price adjustment activity was to increase the price of some bromine-containing flame retardant products from October 1 or from the date of the contract’s license. Prior to this, the company had conducted two separate entrants on July 1 and August 1 this year. Rotary price adjustment activities; Coulter also increased the price of products containing bromine and phosphate ester series flame retardants, mainly due to rising raw material costs, especially the sharp rise in the prices of bisphenol A, phenol and propylene; Songyuan industry has been raised this year The price of antioxidant products, but still not enough to make up for the rising cost of raw materials. In the past year, the price of phenol, a major raw material for plastics additive products, has risen more than 3 times, and the prices of methyl methacrylate, carbon tri-carbon and tetra-olefins have also risen sharply.