Coatings World - May 2011

TiO2 Price Spikes Getting Sharper

In response to unrelenting price increases, coatings formulators are seeking TiO2

by Sean Milmo European Correspondent milmocw@rodpub.com

Sharp rises in titanium dioxide prices and their impact on paint formulations were a major issue at the recent European Coatings Show (ECS) at Nuremberg, Germany, with materials suppliers presenting a range of options for helping coatings companies to cut the TiO2 content of their products. The big challenge facing paint producers is how to decrease TiO2 in their formulations without sacrificing quality.

However TiO2 prices have been going up so relentlessly and look likely to go up even higher that producers are having to consider trade-offs between cutting TiO2 quantities in formulations and marginal drops in opacity.

“The TiO2 shortages have reached ridiculous
levels,” said one materials supplier at the ECS.
“Paint producers are struggling to get supplies.
They are putting as much as possible of what
they can get into stocks because of uncertainties
of availability of TiO2 later in the year.”
Europe, where annual TiO2 demand is ap-
proximately 1.5 million tons or about a third
of the world’s total, is particularly vulnerable
to a tight supply/demand balance of the pig-
ment. This is partly due to plant closures in the
region during the recession and a predomi-

nance of aged capacity, a high proportion of which uses the costly sulphate process. DuPont, whose extensive distribution network in Europe makes it one of the region’s leading suppliers, imports all of its TiO2 into the region, mainly from North America.

TiO2 prices have gone up by roughly 50 percent since early 2008 and by 25-30 percent since late 2009. The price per ton was predicted by analysts to exceed € 3,000 ($4,200) per ton by the end of 2011 but this should now happen in the first half of the year.

During the second quarter TiO2 producers were pressing for 5-10 percent rises after pushing through similar increases earlier in the year.

There seems to be little hope of new capacity being built in Europe over the next few years. The leading producers with European plants— Huntsman Corp., Kronos and Cristal—have said they have no plans for major expansions. In fact Kronos, one of the region’s biggest producers with five plants, has insisted that TiO2 prices have not reached a level which would justify investment in new facilities.

DuPont has postponed the start-up date of a planned 200,000 ton-a-year unit in China costing $1 billion to 2015. After the project was announced in 2005 it was originally going to be opened in 2009.