Raw Material Shortages Affect Ink Prices

This press release is an update to the January 31, 2011 press release and covers the availability of critical raw materials likely used in the inks that printers’ purchase in all of the major printing processes – lithographic, gravure, flexographic and inkjet.

Availability, driven by capacity and demand from competing regions and industries, continues to be the dominant factor on how much product any one manufacturer can obtain and at what cost. Some of the key raw materials causing price increases include: rosin, acrylic acid, carbon black, titanium dioxide, nitrocellulose, crude oil and natural gas, vegetable oils, and colored organic pigments.