Sun Chemical will increase the prices of its energy curable, solvent, and water coatings, as well as energy curable inks, in North America. The changes will become effective on May 15, 2019.

A global shortage of photoinitiators will cause prices of energy curable coatings and energy curable inks to increase while cost escalations in energy and raw materials throughout the first quarter of 2019 will drive the need to increase the prices of solvent and water coatings.

“Government initiatives and regulations geared toward environmental protections have caused many suppliers of photoinitiators to either cease or reduce production for limited periods of time, resulting in an unprecedented increase in raw material costs and shortage of photoinitiators,” says Felipe Mellado, chief marketing officer and Board member, Sun Chemical. “The activities that occurred in 2018 have continued to affect supply of photoinitiators into 2019 and with the recent chemical plant explosion and fires at the Yancheng Industrial Park in China, we anticipate future escalations in the cost of raw materials for energy curable, publication, solvent and water inks. We will continue to monitor the dynamics in China to safeguard supply and search for viable alternative technologies, however, we anticipate the need to pass any raw material increases through to the market via future additional price actions across our portfolio of technologies.”