our business in 2009. Sales are meeting expectations and significant
growth is expected for 2010.
CW: What are the major trends
and challenges influencing the
global market today?
Yazdani, Sun: A number of trends and
challenges are affecting the pricing
and supply issues in the pigments market. First, the price of raw materials
increased at an unprecedented rapid
pace in 2008. It was then followed by a
rapid decline in demand starting in the
fourth quarter of 2008. While some of
the pressures have eased since then,
true year to year improvement will
not be achieved until all of these
inventory effects completely work
through the supply chain. It will take
some time to recoup the magnitude of
the increases that pigment suppliers
absorbed in 2008 and we are now
starting to see the price of raw materials go up again.
At Sun Chemical Performance
Pigments, we continue to work on
controlling our own costs closely
with our supply chain partners, to
improve our internal operations,
and to develop new value oriented
products that can help customers
grow their business. We will continue to invest in those areas that provide our customers with innovative
products and services allowing them
to be more competitive and present
the best value propositions in the
market.
Liebelt, BASF: Certainly key trends
that have emerged recently are sus-
tainable and eco-friendly solutions,
and we expect these to continue to
strengthen. Developments in heat
management solutions and zero and
low volatile organic compound (VOC)
pigment dispersions are helping coat-
ings manufacturers meet legislative
requirements and growing demand
from environmentally conscious con-
sumers. Coatings manufacturers are
focusing more resources on evaluat-
ing innovative solutions. Although
the expectation is that the economy
will improve in 2010, the ability to
differentiate products and offer more
value to consumers will ultimately
help coatings manufacturers to be
more successful.
Trust Chem opens European
warehouse for organic pigments
Trust Chem Group opened a European warehouse for organic pigments in
Rotterdam, The Netherlands. From this 4,000 square meter Rotterdam
hub an extensive range of organic pigments will be supplied to the
European market. The Rotterdam warehouse will be operated by Forvision
Fritom, a full service logistic provider.
“We want to work with a logistic provider who has a vast knowledge
of logistics, an extensive network and one whom shares the same cus-
tomer philosophy as Trust Chem,” said Robert Paul Wielinga, managing
director of Trust Chem Europe. “When supplying dry powder pigments
working with our own drivers and avoiding the hub and spoke model is
important too.”
The company reports that despite the global economic situation Trust
Chem has faced moderate growth of its activities in Europe. Further
growth is predicted for 2010, also based on new product lines to be intro-
duced. Based in Hangzhou, China, Trust Chem Co. Ltd. has four manu-
facturing sites, an international R&D center and a state-of-the-art
application lab in Hangzhou. Main applications are in inks, plastics,
coatings and specialties.
Poemer, Heucotech: The major challenge remains the depressed global
economy and the potential to recover
from 2009. Suppliers and coating companies will all have to adjust to the
“new” norm that will be our baseline
economy moving into the future.
Another major factor continues to be
the influx of pigments from Asia across
essentially all pigment indexes. The
quality of the products continues to
improve while pricing typically remains very aggressive. Coatings customers also continue to want higher
performance pigments (lightfastness,
weatherfastness, alkalai resistance,
improve color space, etc) at prices
equivalent to or below that of current
offerings. The “green” movement is
also a major challenge for the pigments industry. Customers are concerned about a diversity of factors
when purchasing pigments including
are the products APE-free, VOC-free
or what is the heavy metals content?
Pigment manufactures are therefore
challenged to provide environmentally responsible products with higher
performance properties at pricing that
is equivalent to current offerings.
