Engineering resin prices climbing
Canadian Plastics
Canadian PlasticsCiting high feedstock and energy costs and declining profit margins, various engineering resin producers have annou...
Citing high feedstock and energy costs and declining profit margins, various engineering resin producers have announced price increases in recent weeks. Topping the list is Dow Chemical, which announced price increases for polycarbonate effective March 1, increases for ABS and SAN effective April 1, and another increase for all three resin families effective May 1.
Similarly, BASF raised prices on its styrenic copolymer resins April 1. The affected resins included ABS, ASA, ASA/PC, SAN and MABS.
DuPont raised the price of nylon base polymers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by 8%, but has not announced increases for North America.
When announcing the April 1 increase, Brett Simpson, Dow’s global product director for copolymers, said, "While ABS and SAN prices essentially stayed flat since mid-year 2003, our cost position deteriorated, thus further compressing our margins.
"Styrene monomer prices have been steadily increasing since 2Q ’03 and are expected to remain strong during the next quarters. Additionally, over the past 18-24 months we have seen the butadiene prices approximately double," he explains.