Each week I am bombarded with news about the latest round of price increases from raw material suppliers, which in turn force paint makers to raise the prices on their end products. It is a viscous cycle and one that is not going away anytime soon as the global economy continues to climb out of recession mode and political instability around the world sends oil prices up.
    
In fact, oil prices have jumped 24 percent since the middle of February when rebellion broke out in Libya and eventually squeezed off production that supplied nearly two percent of the world’s oil. As a result fuel prices have been increasing. Add to the mix a scarcity of natural resources and you’ve got all the ingredients for a bad business cocktail.
    
Price hikes are the new norm in our modern age, whether we’re filling up at the gas station, buying milk in the grocery store or procuring the latest batch of raw materials for next quarter’s line run. Here are some recent price announcements.
    
Celanese Corp. increased prices on emulsions used in adhesives, paint, coatings, carpet and textiles, in response to higher oil costs. The increase includes three cents per pound for vinyl acetate homopolymers and vinyl acetate ethylene emulsions, both used in adhesives. Vinyl acrylic emulsions, a paint, coating and adhesive additive, are up by five cents per pound and pure acrylic emulsions, also used in paint, are rising by nine cents per pound.

Omonova Solutions’ Specialty Chemicals implemented a price increase of six cents per dry pound for styrene butadiene emulsion polymers. The firm also announced a two percent price increase for Plioway and Pliolite acrylic copolymer dry resins, and a three cents to five cents per pound increase on Pliotec acrylic and styrene acrylic lattices, depending on the grade.
 
Evonik Carbon Black GmbH, a subsidiary of Evonik Industries, increased prices for Carbon Black Pigments and Pigments Preparations Corasol, Derussol, Tack and Colcolor by up to 10 percent for deliveries to locations in Europe, Asia and ROW. Prices for shipments in the NAFTA Region increased by up to twelve cents per pound.

Faced with continued increases in the costs of raw materials and volatility in the global supply chain, Sun Chemical Performance Pigments will raise global prices on Quinacridone and Perylene high performance pigments by up to 10 percent and Violet 23 pigments by $4.50 per pound, effective May 1, 2011.

The automotive OEM coatings business of PPG will implement price increases and surcharges for its electrocoat primer coatings line and related products effective May 1. PPG’s protective and marine coatings (PMC) business is also raising prices globally. International Paint, the protective and marine coating arm of AkzoNobel, also initiated product price rises in response to spiraling global raw material costs.

AkzoNobel Powder Coatings Europe West increased prices between 8.5 and 19 percent. Italian firm Inver SPA increased the prices of powder coatings from 10 to 15 percent. DuPont Industrial CoatingSolutions, North America has increased prices across all liquid and powder coatings products by up to 15 percent.
 
Against the background of rising raw material costs, Henkel implemented a price increase for certain product groups of its industrial adhesives. On average, the price increases range from 10 to 25 percent.