Raw material situation coming to a head

Currently the chemical industry is faced with an increasing demand for raw materials. This situation is mainly caused by the forecasted economic recovery contrasted with several force majeure declarations of raw material suppliers.

Furthermore, there are delivery shortfalls and a global shortage of transport containers, which has led to scarce transportation resources and a dramatic rise in freight costs from Asia to Europe. These alarming circumstances put the European coatings industry under big pressure and are further compounding the already existing challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the nature of our industry raw materials play a far greater role to produce our goods than in other industries. Even a small fluctuation on the raw material market has a massive impact on our production processes. At the moment we have to cope with drastic raw material price increases and availability issues.

At this time, we do not have detailed information from our suppliers regarding the duration of the supply shortages or supply stops. For this reason, we currently cannot rule out the possibility that this dramatic development will also affect our ability to deliver. We all hope for a fast recovery on the raw material market and do our utmost to mitigate the effects of this global situation.