Flint announces packaging ink price increase
packaging ink products ranging from 5 to 7 per cent depending on
ink type. The increase, effective 1 December 2004, comes in
response to the rising costs of transportation, energy, and raw
materials that are integral to printing inks.
"Flint Ink has leveraged its purchasing power, vertical integration, and company-wide productivity improvement programs to shield our customers from price increases for some time now. But the ongoing - in some cases, extreme - increased costs of raw materials makes this price increase necessary," said Sean Mikaelian, vice president, Flint Ink North America Packaging Division. "We will minimise increases where possible and will continue to explore new ways to reduce costs without sacrificing quality."
Mikaelian notes that the limited raw material supply, an escalating issue worldwide, has exacerbated the problem.
"The supply shortages and resulting allocation are key factors that lead to this difficult decision. We will make every effort to minimise the impact of these increases on our customers' operations."
Since January, raw material feed stock costs have increased from 9 per cent for ethylene to 190 per cent for benzene. Crude oil costs are up 65 per cent and natural gas is up 67 per cent.
Flint is not the only operator in the packaging sector to feel the squeeze from increased energy and raw material prices. Earlier this year, Reichhold announced general price increases of around 9 per cent for all liquid resins sold in Central America, Peru, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador and Mexico.
"The unremitting escalation of key raw material prices continues to far outpace our ability to recoup these costs," said Bruce Fawcett, Reichhold commercial senior vice president.
"We are continuing to see upward pricing pressures across a number of raw materials required in the production of our composite and coating resins while also contending with increased energy, transportation and packaging costs."
Chemical giant Dow is another firm that has been affected by the current climate.
"Our price increases in 2004 have not compensated for the tremendous rise in raw material costs during the first half of this year," said Markus Wildi, commercial vice president for Dow's plastics portfolio in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Additional increases in raw material costs during Q3, as well as unusually high oil prices, have further eroded our margins."
Flint Ink is the largest privately-owned printing ink manufacturer in the world. The company offers a comprehensive range of flexographic, sheetfed, web offset, gravure, UV/EB curable, and digital and specialty printing materials and equipment.
The group operates nearly 100 facilities worldwide, employs approximately 4,400 people, and has sales in excess of $1.4 billion.
