International ink giants increase demand for domestic industrial upgrading

Business Club News November 3, Flint Group announced that it will increase the price of packaging inks sold in North America. The ink industry is facing cost pressures, as long as it comes from environmental protection costs and rising raw material prices, the listed companies involved include Lotto shares and Tianlong Group. Many ink manufacturers have also begun looking for new pigment alternatives to offset growing production costs, but finding such alternatives is not easy.

On October 31, the Flint Group announced that the company will increase the price of packaging inks sold in North America, effective from November 1, 2011. Flint Group attributed the price increase factor to the high level of fluctuation in raw material prices. The vast majority of products in this price adjustment range rose by 5% to 8%, and individual products rose by more than this range, depending on the extent of raw material price increases.

In 2011, the price of ink raw materials increased significantly. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the prices of water-based inks and solvent-based inks for packaging printing. Flint Group sources said that almost all raw materials are now rising prices, all colors, all products, all the technology are affected. So the price increase is also comprehensive.

As the Chinese government has severely cracked down on environmental pollution in recent years, the ink industry is facing cost pressures. Many manufacturers of pigment intermediates, especially the manufacturers of carbonamines and beta-naphthols, have been greatly affected. This is one of the main reasons for the rising price of the ink industry. In addition, some ink manufacturers are also looking for new pigment alternatives to offset the increasing production costs. However, finding such alternatives is not easy. There are very few UV inks that use raw materials from renewable sources. Adding a small amount of renewable raw materials does not affect the performance of UV-curable inks. At least until now, manufacturers have not found the ideal alternatives. The main reason is that in addition to technology, the cost issues are even more difficult to solve. Therefore, the rise of ink prices is an inevitable trend in the future for a long time.

In the A-share market, listed companies involved in the ink industry include Lotto, Tianlong, etc. The future Suzhou Coswood Ink Co., Ltd. will also be listed.

In addition, in the past few years, the European packaging printing ink industry has taken many measures to try to prevent the ink in the packaging material from intruding into the packaged food. As of now, only Switzerland has introduced relevant laws and the country is not a member of the European Union. To some extent, Swiss regulations have become the standard in Europe, and now owners of packaging companies and food brands will require their suppliers to have relevant certifications. Ink industry standards gradually increased.

It is reported that raw material price fluctuations are indeed large. Taking soybean oil used in offset printing inks as an example, it reached a maximum of 15,000 yuan per ton in 2008, and only 5,580 yuan per ton at the lowest, after which prices began to rise slowly. For example, Coswood’s main raw materials are pigments, resins, mineral oil, vegetable oils, various additives, and packaging materials. During the reporting period, the company’s raw material costs accounted for 86.31%, 87.96%, 86.96%, and 87.80% of the total production cost. A large proportion of production costs.

The ink industry as a whole is suffering from the cost pressure of rising raw material prices, and at the same time must face the price competition brought about by the expansion of the entire industry. For instance, the customers of Tianlong Group are mainly large companies, which are relatively strong, so their cost transfer capability is weak, and Coswood is also the same. Although its product offset printing ink is the largest variety in the entire ink industry segment, its product customers are mainly Big companies such as McDonald's and Motorola.

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the productivity level, the printing machinery has increased the requirements for the performance, quality and function of printing inks in improving the printing quality and printing speed. The purity, saturation, lower ink film thickness, improved adhesion and gloss, reduced energy consumption, and the use of non-polluting, easily recyclable materials have made high demands.

Printing inks for flexible packaging are process inks that are printed on "soft" packaging materials such as plastic films, woven bags, aluminum foils, and roll wrappers using a printing press. In accordance with the different types of printing plates, it can be divided into gravure inks, letterpress inks and flexographic inks; according to the different main ink components, it can be divided into solvent type inks, alcohol type inks and water-based inks; Can be divided into table printing ink and printing ink.

In the course of daily use, the ink should not fade or change color due to light; the adhesion should have a certain degree of fastness, and it should not fall off under the flexing and general conditions of friction during the packaging process; in the printing process, it should have good The adaptability of the printing overprinting, the printing surface is not adhered to other surface layers in roll shape; in terms of stability, it is required to be able to tolerate the solvent in the adhesive and the components such as acid-alkali and oiliness in the package during compounding. It must also be able to withstand the heat of late processing; it is suitable for cold areas and frozen storage; there are also many other testing items on viscosity, volatility, fineness and so on. The relevant content has national standards and will not be repeated here.

In the field of environmental protection, solving the problem of environmental pollution during the manufacture and use of ink is currently the most pressing issue. Many developed countries have formulated strict laws and regulations, established strong regulatory and monitoring agencies, and continuously researched and developed a variety of effective solutions, such as the use of environmentally friendly materials and the suppression and recovery of harmful pollutant emissions.

According to the China Inknet Information, in 2006, global ink sales were approximately US$15 billion, and total ink production was approximately 3.6 million tons, including 1.05 million tons in North America, 250,000 tons in South America, 1.2 million tons in Europe, and 1.1 million tons in Asia. As a major country in the world of ink production and consumption, Japan has a strong representation of its development and represents, to some extent, the development of the world's ink.

China's ink industry started relatively late. Compared with the scale of the ink industry in Europe and the United States, the gap is larger. The annual output of ink in our country has grown from about 100,000 tons in 1995 to 430,000 tons in 2008, and the sales amount is about 9.1 billion yuan. The average annual growth rate is maintained at more than 10%, of which the offset ink accounts for about 50 of the total. %, flexographic and gravure inks together account for about 40% of the total, and other inks account for about 10% of the total. At present, China has become the fourth largest ink producer in the world, second only to the United States, Japan and Germany.

In 2008, the total output of water-based inks in China was 79,700 tons, and there were more than 200 domestic water-based ink manufacturers, but most of them were small-scale, and there were less than 10 water-based ink manufacturers with an annual output of more than 1,000 tons. For a long time, the company has always positioned its products in the mid-to-high end market, and it has been in the leading position in the domestic industry in terms of scale, technology, and services, and has strong market competitiveness.

However, with the rapid development of China's printing industry and the gradual increase in environmental protection requirements, more and more manufacturing companies will enter the water-based ink industry to compete. Since 2002, the average annual growth rate of the total output value of China's printing industry has reached 15.39%, showing a trend of sustained and rapid growth. In 2008, China achieved a total output value of 475 billion yuan in the printing industry, and completed the development target of printing production value of RMB440 billion at the end of the middle period of the national printing industry's “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” in advance.

At present, there are about 600 ink manufacturers in China, and about 300 of which have a main business income of more than 5 million yuan. They are completely in a state of free competition in the market. In the segmented market of offset printing inks, according to the statistics of 2008, the top three companies in the industry are all controlled by Japanese companies. Coswood ranks 6th in output, which is about 5 times higher than that of industry leader Tianjin Toyo.

Under the increasingly fierce competition in the industry, the performance of Letong and Tianlong Group began to decline sharply last year. The two companies are the leading players in the subdivided ink market, gravure inks and flexographic inks.