For many ink producers, not much has changed. There are continuing problems with shortages and rising prices, not only with bulk pigments like titanium dioxide (TiO2) and some organic pigments but also some specialty products.

The long supply lines between Europe and China, the main source of classic organic pigments for the region’s graphics market, are still undermining the availability of products. The stricter enforcement of China’s anti-pollution regulations is continuing to cause scarcities due to the closure of not only pigments producers but, more significantly, intermediates manufacturers.

For pigment producers, however, Europe is gradually becoming a region of opportunities, especially for high performance and effect pigments. There are segments of relatively strong and profitable growth in demand requiring, for example, the application of new particle and dispersion technologies. This technologically-led demand has been boosted by the continued expansion of inkjet and other digitalized processes.

The structure and scope of the printing sector in Europe is also changing in a way that is eliminating distinctions between producers of inks and pigments. Now a growing number of companies are combining inks and pigments development within the same business. This is particularly the case in industrial printing where innovative digital and other processes have extended the application of printing to new substrates.

For ink producers, one of the costliest rises in raw materials over the last one to two years has been that of TiO2. Since mid-2016 and the end of last year the European price of the pigment went up by approximately 50%.

For some specialty printing ink grades, the increases have been even steeper. This was partly because of a fire in early 2017 at a 130,000 ton-a-year plant, then owned by Huntsman, at Pori, Finland. The unit is a major European supplier of grades for the graphics sector. Within a few months of the fire, TiO2 prices soared by over a fifth in parts of northern Europe.

There have been recent signs of easing on the upward pressure on TiO2 prices, particularly for those for specialty grades. UK-based Venator, the new owners of Huntsman’s pigments business, has indicated that during the current rebuilding of the Pori plant priority will be given to specialty grades production.

During the second half of this year output will start to be raised to 60% of the plant’s former full capacity. But its full specialty capacity will not be restored until sometime in 2019, the company has warned.

Analysts have been expecting average TiO2 prices in Europe to start leveling out this summer. But in the longer term they will continue to stay at a high level as producers in the region stick to a strategy of keeping a tight balance between supply and demand.

This objective may be undermined by rising TiO2 imports from small and medium sized producers in China, which have been returning to the export market after anti-pollution restrictions forced them to reduce output.

There would be a similar squeeze on supplies in organic and high performance pigments. With the latter, producers have more scope to maintain or raise margins because of strong demand.

Clariant, a leading supplier of high performance pigments in Europe, announced in May price increases of 5 to 20% in its pigments and dyes. It blamed the “continued rise in prices of key raw materials driven by several factors including supply-demand dynamics.”

Due the final registration of products required under the EU’s REACH legislation on safety of chemicals, users of low-volume specialty or niche pigments are facing the threat of shortages leading to price increases. There is even a possibility that some of the pigments could disappear from the market altogether.

The pigments, along with thousands of other chemicals supplied in annual amounts of 1-100 tons a year by producers or importers, were due to registered with safety data by a deadline of May 31 this year.

Figures from the Helsinki-based European Chemical Agency (ECHA), responsible for administering REACH and other EU chemicals regulations, indicate that large numbers of chemicals have not been registered. This is probably because most of the registrants would be SMEs that could not afford the registration costs.

Under rules of REACH, which stands for the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals, unregistered chemicals cannot remain on the European market.

“The impact of not solving this problem of non-registration could be huge and hundreds of pigments would not be available for the European market,” said Marko Susnik, an Austrian-based REACH expert who advises UEAPME, a Brussels-headquartered association representing SMEs in Europe, including small ink and pigments producers as well as printers.

“Because of the complexity of registering some products like pigments, it would not be surprising if some companies decided not to register their products,” he explains. “The costs of collecting test data, for example, or of information for the identification of a chemical may have forced companies to stop doing business with a specific substance. Or companies could have reduced their annual supply to the market to below one ton so that they would be below the threshold for registration.”

The correct identification of a substance for REACH registration has been a major challenge with some producers of specialty pigments, such as complex inorganic colored pigments (CICPs). These are chemicals produced by a mixture of raw materials, usually metal oxide and salts, undergoing a high-temperature calcination reaction to form a specific crystalline matrix.

CICPs have been identified with the same name and substance identification as other complex inorganic colored pigments despite having significantly different compositions. But under the strict identification rules of REACH, companies run of the risk of a registration being ruled by ECHA as being invalid.

“A minimal variation in composition, impurity concentration, type of raw material or processing conditions could trigger a separate REACH registration, which would result in a burden especially to small and medium-sized enterprises producing CICPs,” said Eurocolour, a pigments, dyes and fillers trade association, in recent guidance on REACH registrations.

CICPs, increasingly used in inks and in laser-marker printing of cards, films and labels, is an example of a high-performance pigment for which there is growing demand.

Sectors with a high proportion of high-performance pigments are tending to expand at above-average GDP rates, driven by new ink and colorant technologies.

The digital textile print sector, for example, has been forecast by the UK consultancy Smithers Pira to grow by an average of 12.3% in 2016-2021, with the market doubling in value to $2.42 million. Research and Markets, Dublin, which forecasts a slower average annual growth rate of 5.6% in 2018-2023 in the digital textile printing market, estimates that Europe will have the largest share of the sector.

Europe’s success in textile has stemmed from a broadly spread expertise in inkjet printing and capacity for innovation in inks with the help of development partnerships between ink, pigment and dye producers and printhead manufacturers.

The result is printing processes and inks with a broader range of colors, faster throughput speeds, environmental compliance and greater versatility to meet a wider range of customer needs, especially with the choice and design of colors.

The European ceramics sector has a declining share of the world market in volume terms but it remains the world leader in terms of value. This has been to some extent due to its development and application of digital processes and of new colorants technologies, especially pigments for inkjet inks.

In 2017-2022 the ceramics inks market is forecast to grow by compound annual growth rate of 7.2% mainly due to strong rising demand for decorative ceramic tiles helped by improved design and aesthetic appeal, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets.

Digital printing technology now has the technological leadership in the ceramic inks market, the report says. Much of that leadership comes from Europe.

What distinguishes the European ceramics sector from its competitors in other regions is that it is concentrated in two clusters – at Castellon, near Valencia, Spain, and Sassuolo, northern Italy. A lot of the innovation capacity comes from so many businesses along the ceramics value chain, particularly those in pigments and other colorants, being packed together in single areas.

Clusters tend to benefit their SMEs by helping them to focus on R&D and innovation through the exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge with other local companies. Because of their size, they are also able to attract academic support and specialist staff in key areas like colorants.

The Italian ceramic tile segment has had, at 30%, the highest added-value ratio – the difference between added value and turnover – in the global tile industry. The Spanish tile sector has also been a leading performer in terms of added value and returns on investment and equity, according to a report by ACIMAC, the Italian ceramic equipment trade association.

Castellon, now a world center in innovation in the development and production of ceramic pigments and colorants, particularly for tiles, has been attracting the attention of outside companies and investors wanting to take advantage of its position in the growing world ceramics market.

Recent acquisitions of pigment or colorants companies in the area include Ferro’s takeover of Endeka Group and a majority shareholding in Gardenia Quimica, Lone Star equity fund’s acquisition of Esmalglass Group, and Turkey’s Akkok Group of Megacolor.

The strategy behind Akkok’s takeover is to use Megacolor as its supplier of inks and pigments for its large ceramics operations in Turkey, in which it has a dominant position in frits and glass. This is an example of how in certain high growth segments the pressurized European printing pigments segment is actually expanding internationally, rather than contracting. n

European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.