Catherine Diamond, Associate Editor
The resins market is expected to continue its steady recov- ery thanks largely to gains made in both the housing and automotive markets.
“The architectural coatings market showed mid-single-dig-it growth in 2014,” said John J. Hiel, Arkema Coating Resins
North American marketing manager. “Existing home sales is the
most predictive leading indicator of architectural coatings demand and 2014’s total fell short of 2013.
“However, this was offset by continued strong unit turnover
and property upkeep demands in the multi-family market, as
a result of increased mobility of renters. The industrial resins
market continued its slow recovery, with the automotive market
being particularly strong again in 2014.”
Julie Fuell, coatings sales director at Reichhold, said that
though she believes the coatings sector is slowly recovering from
the economic downturn and volumes are up in certain markets
for the first quarter of 2015. “We are optimistic that the increase
in consumer confidence seen in March will continue to improve
sales growth for the balance of 2015.”
Richard Stanley, commercial director at DIC International
(USA), said that his company has seen organic growth in exist-
ing applications, particularly in the automotive and consumer
electronics sectors.
Housing market improvements and lower oil prices are driving signs of recovery in all the categories of resins: industrial,
architectural and special purpose, said Yasmin Sayed-Sweet, vice
president of sales and marketing at Alberdingk Boley.
Striking a Balance
As the market continues to recover, balancing customer need with
rising manufacturing costs is of prime importance for suppliers.
Brad McPhee, vice president of sales and marketing at Specialty
Polymer, said that his company continues to see demand for per-
formance improvements and technical solutions to help custom-
ers “differentiate and achieve sustainable, profitable growth.”
“We’ve also seen an increase in new customers who are look-
ing to diversify their supplier base and increase their exposure
to innovation and better service options,” he said. “In order to
meet customer needs, we continue to invest in our business to
meet demand. In 2014, we added new talent to our R&D, Sales
and Tech Service organizations and broke ground on a signifi-
cant capacity expansion to our Chester, South Carolina plant.”
Shenton King, director of marketing at King Industries, said
that cost performance and global regulatory compliance are key
drivers for customers.
“Cost performance is of the utmost importance to our cus-
tomers,” King said. “Creating multi-functional and cost effective
products are always attractive to our customers. Customer require-
ments include compliance with global regulations, such as REACH
in Europe, ENCS for Japan, IECSC for China, as well as newly
adapted REACH compliance standards for Korea and Taiwan.”
Chris Petrangeli, Americas sales manager at Sartomer
Americas, said that customers have been looking to capitalize
on falling oil prices, particularly in the first quarter of 2015.
“Many innovative markets continue to push for property and
performance enhancements as they seek product differentiation
and improvements. Soft touch/ feel, fingerprint resistance, low
dielectric and other properties continue to have high interest
and demand,” he said.
Reichhold’s Fuell said, “Although there are cost increases as-
sociated with the actual resin manufacturing process, the prima-
ry driver for rising cost lies within the raw materials needed to
produce environmentally friendly yet high-performance resins.
This is more evident in certain types of chemistries which is why
Reichhold strives to offer customers a breadth of resin technolo-
gies to meet both their performance and cost requirements.”
Stanley, of DIC International, said, “Customers see resins as
the component in a formation that is likely to determine the
Increasing home and automotive sales are helping the resins market make gains.
Resins Market Update
