Coatings World - April 2013

Resin Market

UPDATE

Resin manufacturers saw gains during the past year, and are optimistic about the coming year.

David Savastano, Ink World Editor

Resins play a crucial role in the formulation of coatings. Whether it is for coatings designed for construction and housing, industrial metal, automotive, aerospace or other uses, resins are critical for characteristics ranging from durability and adhesion to gloss and resistance properties.

While the paint and coatings market has had some difficult times in recent years, many resin manufacturers say they saw gains during the past year, and are more optimistic about the market going forward.

Tina Snider, marketing manager, wood, wood composites and concrete resins and performance additives for Industrial Coatings, Dispersions & Pigments Division, North America, BASF Corporation, said that BASF saw glimmers of recovery, although economic indicators for 2012 were mixed.

“Construction started to return in different segments and should continue in 2013,” Snider added.

“The specialty resins have recovered and continue to grow
following the recession in 2010. We have seen strong demand
for the specialty performance epoxy resins,” said Charles
Zarnitz, product line manager epoxies for Emerald Performance
Materials’ CVC Thermoset Specialties business group. “These
materials typically are used in high performance applications
such as industrial maintenance, primers in automotive and aero-
space, and concrete coatings.”
Steve Reiser, Specialty Polymers, Inc. ‘s vice president of sales,
noted that the 2012 resins market was much improved from the
economic downturn of the last few years.

“Specialty Polymers participates in a wide range of markets,
and last year we saw some of these markets performing better
than others,” Reiser added. “Some were even up significantly.
Generally speaking, all markets appear to be performing better
than the lows of 2008, 2009 and 2010.”
“Our customers have stayed loyal through the market ups
and downs and we continue to add new customers,” said Peter
Boyer, senior technical sales representative at Georgia-Pacific
Chemicals. “That said, we sense there is a real feeling of opti-
mism among our customers right now.”
Carl Sullivan, vice president, commercial coatings, Reichhold,
said that 2012 showed minimal growth in most coatings mar-
kets from Reichhold’s perspective. “Waiting for a rebound is not
a good business path,” Sullivan added.

Meeting Customers’ Needs

With competition ever increasing and costs a concern, coatings manufacturers are looking for more for less. Resin suppliers are doing what they can to help out.

“Although it sounds cliché, everyone is very busy and doing
more with less,” Snider said. “Anything, a product or service,
that can remove complexity or solve a problem leads to a win
for all involved. Customers require clear, concise communica-
tion and problem solving support.”
“With the weak market, price pressures are rather signifi-
cant,” Sullivan noted. “However, more significant is the will-
ingness to target differentiated products that provide unique
performance features.”
Zarnitz noted that customers are always seeking improved
value and performance.

“For specialty epoxy systems, customers seek improved elevated temperature performance, flexibility, toughness, adhesion, longer recoat times and blush resistance,” Zarnitz added.

Improved performance is another key need.

“The principal demands are to meet higher performance with less film thickness, lower or zero VOC with no odor, higher renewable content for polyurethane dispersions and 2K performance in a 1K product,” Sayed-Sweet said.