PIGMENTS | BLACK AND WHITE
Right: Dairy packaging is a potential
end-use market for TiO2 alternatives such as Omya’s OmyaPET opacifier
The message is similar from Gerry Colamarino, Managing Director at TiPMC Consulting. “With inventories low, everyone is looking forward to a seasonally slow 4Q to help drive a restock,” he says. “But is that really plausible? Chinese suppliers are at full capacity, but being forced to reduce produc- tion, even as environmental enforcement is curtailing available power. The stage is set for methodical price increases.” These observations are mostly confirmed by
Tomaž Pevcin, Sales Manager at Slovenian TiO2 supplier Cinkarna. The company uses the sulphate
production route and he says sulphur prices have gone up by 250% in less than a year. Those rises have so far been reflected in TiO2
prices, but he
suspects there may be a disconnect in the coming months.
Most Cinkarna product is for paints and coat-
ings. “The market went crazy during the pandemic with people doing more home decorating,” says Pevcin. But the picture is changing as the company puts more effort into developing grades for plastics. At present, it has a grade for non-durables, but he expects a grade for durables to be ready within a year.
Another supplier that has been largely reliant on the sulphate process, but on a rather larger scale, is LB Group, formerly Lomon Billions. It is now the world’s third largest supplier of TiO2
The company has increased its chloride process
production capacity, which currently stands at around 300,000 tonnes/yr. This will grow by another 100,000 tonne/yr when its next line begins production in 2022. Increases elsewhere will take total chloride capacity to around 700,000 tonnes/yr by the mid 2020’s. Increasing chloride capacity is enabling LB
pigment with the
capacity to produce over one million tonnes annually at its five production plants in China. It recently simplified the branding of its titanium dioxide pigments — all of its titanium dioxide pigments are now branded Xuelian in China and Billions elsewhere. It has dropped the Lomon brand name.
Group to grow its chloride process product range, according to Julie Reid, LB Group Market- ing Director located in the UK. Recent additions are intended for coatings and paper laminates, but grades for plastics are in the pipeline, including a new weatherable pigment that is expected to be available commercially during the next two years. One thing that TiO2
suppliers may be monitor-
ing is how much demand will be affected as new EU legislation comes into effect – as of October 2021 – mandating warning labels on various products containing more than 1% TiO2
, such as
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