Consumables

Violet 23 drives price increase for Sun Chemical

Thursday 11. November 2010 - Sun Chemical is today announcing an immediate 25% price increase for all its products containing the raw material pigment Violet 23. The increase has become essential due to cost of the pigment going up by 70% in the past 12 months with further increases expected.

Supply of Violet 23 started to become an issue at the end of 2009 when availability of Carbazole, the key material from which Violet 23 is produced, started to reduce in China and India. Carbazole is only used in the pigment industry, but coal tar, from which Carbazole is produced,is used widely in other industries thus limiting the amount available to manufacture Carbazole. The knock on effect being that the pigment industry has minimal control over the cost and supply of Carbazole.

Felipe Mellado, Chief Marketing Officer of Sun Chemical, comments: “With raw material shortages currently a common theme throughout the industry, Sun Chemical is working hard to offset the impact of cost increases, but it has now become essential to implement a price increase for all products containing Violet 23. The majority of ink products affected are in the Liquid Inks market, but significant volumes are also used in Conventional Sheetfed and UV inks. We are doing all we can to work with leading pigment suppliers to manage this situation to lessen the impact to our customers.”