Coatings World - January 2013

Pigments Market

REPOR T
While still sluggish, growth for pigment manufacturers will be fueled by new product
introductions.

Kerry Pianoforte, Editor

Although the pigments market still is facing challenges re- lated to raw material prices and the economy, there are some indications that 2013 will see improvements.

“The pigments market continues to trend upward particularly when viewed against the ‘recession’ years,” said Robert Poemer, business unit leader, Heucotech, Ltd. “The percentage improvement in 2012 was also larger than that of 2011, but again the increases are relatively small. The performance also varied significantly by the sector of the coatings business. As in 2011, the sector with the most improved performance was automotive where we have seen positive growth for the last three years. The building sector is showing some signs of recovery but it cannot be termed a significant recover at this point. Again, the major questions for building sector are when will we see a return to normalcy and what will the definition of the new normalcy be?”

Sun Chemical Performance Pigments saw a positive upswing
in the global pigments market in 2012, but still not to pre-reces-
sion levels. “We faced lower demand in Europe due to the eco-
nomic downturn and stronger demand in the U.S., South America
and Asia,” said Mehran Yazdani, vice president, marketing, per-
formance pigments, Sun Chemical. “As a leading global pigment
manufacturer, we are optimistic that Sun Chemical Performance
Pigments will overcome global economic challenges and see con-
tinued growth for the pigments market in 2013.”
For Lansco Colors, January 2012 was a strong month and
great start to the year. “Growth slowed after this, particularly
in the second half of they year, but overall our customers did
well in 2012,” said Frank Lavieri, executive vice president and
general manager, Lansco Colors.

“Generally speaking, 2012 was a challenging year for the
pigments market,” said Li Wu, technical manager, Trust Chem.
“Sales were especially soft in Europe. Worldwide we have seen
a steady drop in demand for pigments for publication inks. The
soft markets has put added pressure on pricing.”
Overall, the year 2012 was a good year for coatings in-
dustry sales, according to Poemer. “The year started out
with relatively robust sales through the summer months and
then a slight slowdown for the balance of 2012,” he said.
“Heubach’s sales for our line of high performance pigments
was up slightly in 2012 with the positive driver being sales
to the automotive market and soft sales to the architectural/
building market soft. For 2013, we do anticipate growth
along the lines of 4-5 percent. A good percentage of our
growth will be fueled by the introduction of new products
into our high performance line of pigments. However, this
growth could be significantly impacted if the building sector
building recovers more than anticipated or automotive slows.
However, we don’t anticipate major changes in either for the
foreseeable future.”
Instead of relying on improvements in the still-sluggish econo-
my, pigment makers are looking at new products to fuel growth.

Major trends and challenges

The year 2011 was a frustrating one for the pigment industry both for suppliers and customers. “Availability on a significant number of pigments with subsequent pricing increases were relatively prevalent,” said Poemer. “The year 2012 showed increased availability across a large number of products and therefore caused pricing to soften somewhat. For 2013, it appears the situation will remain relatively stable with respect to supply and demand.”